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Pennsylvania House of Representatives
https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/Legis/CSM/showMemoPublic.cfm?chamber=H&SPick=20150&cosponId=19304
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House of Representatives
Session of 2015 - 2016 Regular Session

MEMORANDUM

Posted: November 23, 2015 11:06 AM
From: Representative Garth D. Everett
To: All House members
Subject: Creating “Commonwealth Employee Collective Bargaining Accountability Act”
 
In the near future, I plan to introduce legislation to give the General Assembly the authority to rescind collective bargaining agreements that are negotiated between the Office of the Governor and the unions representing state employees. Currently, our laws are unclear about what actions the General Assembly can take if a collective bargaining agreement is entered into by the Office of the Governor which the General Assembly believes to not be in the public interest of the Commonwealth. My legislation establishes a set of actions which could be taken in such circumstances:
  • Grants the General Assembly the power to nullify any provision of a new collective bargaining agreement by not appropriating the funds required to administer that new contract provision. California gives its Legislature a similar power in its “Dills Act”.

  • Allows the General Assembly to pass a Concurrent Resolution disapproving a proposed collective bargaining agreement, which would nullify the proposed agreement; provided that if the Governor vetoed such a resolution, and General Assembly did not pass a veto override, the Governor’s office could sign the collective bargaining agreement contract.

  • The proposed legislation requires that the Office of the Governor provide the General Assembly with a copy of a Memorandum of Understanding summarizing the proposed agreement at least 45 days before the agreement can be signed. The Independent Fiscal Office would be required to perform a cost analysis of such contract within 7 days of submittal of the Memorandum of Understanding to the General Assembly. The General Assembly would base its actions on this information.
It is important to emphasize that this legislation only covers contracts negotiated by the Office of the Governor and does not include any other public bodies (school districts, municipalities, etc.). I would expect that the General Assembly would rarely take the actions proposed in my legislation, but I believe the existence of these “tools” will make the Governor’s Office take into account the overall wishes of the General Assembly when negotiating with state public sector unions.

Attached is a copy of the legislation. Please contact Chanin Zwing with any questions at 787-5270 or via e-mail at czwing@pahousegop.com.

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Introduced as HB2289