Today, Mark Mix, President of National Right to Work was published in the Washington Times regarding today’s U.S. Senate vote on Senator Harry Reid’s Police and Firefighter Monopoly Bargaining Bill (S. 3991). Despite voters sending a clear message to Washington last month, it appears some pro-forced unionism senators didn’t quite get the message:

If Mr. Reid cared one whit for what ordinary Americans think, he would respond to such electoral drubbings for his fellow Big Labor Democrats and GOP fellow travelers by backing away from federally mandated union-boss control over public-safety officers. Instead, he announced over the weekend that he will file for cloture and force a vote on this draconian bill on Wednesday. Among those voting will be 14 defeated or retiring senators who won’t be back in January.

Federalizing union monopoly bargaining over public-safety employees would be ill-advised under any circumstances, but at a time when taxes are already poised to skyrocket and cities and towns across America are already struggling to get through the worst fiscal crisis in decades, Congress would have to be incredibly reckless to enact this harmful legislation.

By tipping the scales even further in favor of government employment growth over job growth, S. 3991 could damage the hopes of reviving America’s private-sector economy. Moreover, as former Service Employees International Union second-in-command Anna Burger boasted, a federal public-safety union mandate would "create a national collective," i.e. monopoly, "bargaining standard for all [state and local] public workers."

Meanwhile, the Washington Post came out with a hard-hitting editorial against the bill:

…the Senate is about to take up a measure that might compound the financial predicament of state and local governments. Pushed by Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act would require all states to give police and fire unions "adequate" collective bargaining rights – as determined by the Federal Labor Relations Authority. Unions could sue states deemed "inadequate" in federal court. Mr. Reid is trying to get this measure through the lame-duck Congress as a reward to the firefighters’ union, which backed his reelection campaign. But it also enjoys support from several key Republicans. 

We share the sponsors’ high regard for first responders. But this measure would trample long-standing state autonomy in public-sector labor relations, to no obvious national purpose. Of the 10 states with the lowest violent crime rates in 2008, three did not require collective bargaining for police and one, Virginia, forbids it for all public employees.

The bill could disrupt the law in both Virginia and Maryland, the latter of which lets counties decide whether and how to bargain with employees. The predictable result would be higher costs for employee contracts or legal bills – or both – at precisely the moment when cash-strapped states and localities can least afford them.

It’s no wonder that the Fort Worth Star-Telegram declared today that "The Senate would do taxpayers a big favor by killing this bill."