The Charleston Daily Mail recently outlined Mayor Danny Jones’ concerns about pending federal legislation, best known as the Police and Firefighters Monopoly Bargaining Bill, that would grease the rails for the forced unionization of every first responder in the country.

"It’s going to change things. The relationship (between the city and the police union) will become adversarial," Jones said.

"If you look around the states, the most unionized states are the ones that are the most broke."

Jones is not alone in his position. The National League of Cities and the National Association of Counties both have urged their members to oppose the legislation, with the cities’ group issuing a formal call to Congress asking for the act to be rejected.

"The Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act of 2009 (H.R. 413) would federalize what has historically been a state and local responsibility. With so many other pressing issues, there is no compelling reason for the federal government to intrude in this arena," the group’s letter states.

Mayor Jones isn’t the first mayor to stand up to the union bosses.  In July, National Right to Work president Mark Mix wrote in the Washington Examiner about Miami’s Manny Diaz, the outgoing president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, who was outraged when the Obama Administration refused to attend the conference’s meeting in Providence, RI — at the request of International Association of Firefighters (IAFF/AFL-CIO) union President Harold Schaitberger.  Mix wrote:

As the national recession and exploding government deficits are forcing mayors across the country to make difficult decisions to keep their cities from going bankrupt, Schaitberger is leading a crusade to intimidate local and state elected officials. Specifically, he and his lieutenants are trying to deter local and state politicians from reforming the outrageous public-safety union pension systems that are driving cities like Providence into insolvency. The Obama White House is apparently eager to go along.

Not long before the mayors’ meeting, Schaitberger and the bosses of IAFF Local 799 in Providence announced that they would be setting up a picket line outside the conference. The White House then vowed that no one from the Obama administration would defy the union brass by attending. In a June 5 IAFF union press release, Schaitberger was quoted gloating about the Obama administration’s "unqualified support" for "organized labor."

If the Police and Firefighters Monopoly Bargaining Bill becomes law, cities’ budget woes will become even more severe, and union brass will attain even more political power to enact their own agenda at the expense of the taxpayers.  For more background on the bill, read this report (PDF) by Stan Greer of the National Institute for Labor Relations Research.