Should Public Safety Employees Be Included In State Bargaining Restrictions?

Under Gov. Scott Walker’s controversial budget repair bill, public safety workers were exempt from restrictions on collective bargaining; but one lawmaker wants that changed.

So what’s changed?

According to an Associated Press story running on the Journal Times website, Independent Rep. Bob Ziegelbauer of Manitowoc wants to allow municipalities to mandate employee health and pension contributions, which are currently set through collective bargaining.

And this has Jason Hempel, president of the local firefighters union for the Caledonia Fire Department and an executive board member on the Wisconsin Professional Fire Fighters Association, pretty angry.

In January, Walker introduced a budget repair bill that passed both the Republican controlled Assembly and Senate. The bill was signed into law in March, but is now on hold after a judge blocked the bill from becoming law. Walker’s Budget Repair Bill prohibits employers from collecting union dues and members of collective bargaining units would not be required to pay dues. It also mandated that public union employees pay some of their pension and healthcare costs, but the bill exempted public safety employees.

Hempel said their union members expected something like this would happen, which is one of the reasons why a number of firefighters and police officers from Caledonia attended protest rallies in Madison when Walker proposed to strip collective bargaining rights from other public employee unions.

“Walker’s not going to save money for anyone by doing this,” Hempel said. “We keep talking about how people making $200,000 a year are not making ends meet. Well lets talk about what’s actually happening in Racine with people making $10,000 a year that we’re not helping at all.”

Hempel said originally Walker saw Public Safety employees differently, that he wanted to show them that what they do is important and wanted to show his appreciation.

“His position was that if we have people strike and we don’t have enough people to cover those positions, then what’s going to happen to our public safety?” he said.

But Hempel doesn’t know if Ziegelbauer’s bill will make it very far because he’s the only person on the bill.

“I’m tired of it,” Hempel said. “One of the things most people aren’t talking about is that if the bill gets passed, it’s retroactive. So, all of that money is going to get taken away in one large chunk. And if you take a couple thousand dollars away from what I make, that could make me miss a house payment.”

The news comes on the heels of the state seeing more revenue coming in the door. A story by the Journal Sentinel reports that the state will see a $200 million increase in revenue each year for the next three years in tax collection dollars.

Walker introduced the bill to plug a $140 million in the budget for this fiscal year.  The Governor's Budget Office also projected a $3.6 billion dollar deficit for the next 2-year budget cycle.

Rep. Robin Vos, (R-Rochester) and Van Wanggaard (R-Racine) could not be reached for comment.