House Committee on Education and Labor Hearing, ‘Standing With Public Servants: Protecting the Right to Organize’

Abstract

This testimony was prepared for the House Committee on Education and Labor hearing, “Standing with Public Servants: Protecting the Right to Organize,” regarding the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act and the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act, which took place in June 2019. These bills would provide minimum collective bargaining rights for public employees in the minority of states that do not currently provide such rights. In the testimony, I note that the other industrialized democracies provide collective bargaining rights for public employees generally, and indeed view them as a fundamental human right. Further, many employment laws in the U.S. apply to the public sector. The testimony also rebuts various objections to granting public employees such rights, and it describes the positive effects such rights can and do have.