After being heckled by angry union members earlier this week, it would have been politically expedient for Gov. Bill Ritter on Thursday to simply sign a bill making it easier for firefighters to form unions.
Instead, Ritter stood up for Colorado and vetoed Senate Bill 180. He did what was best for Coloradans, not what’s best for certain special-interest groups.
We have chided Ritter in the past for not taking principled stands on certain issues. This is not one of those moments.
The political cost of his veto could be real. Unions helped elect Ritter in 2006, and their members already are steaming over an earlier veto of a bill that would have rewarded state unemployment benefits to union workers locked out during contract disputes. They’re planning a rally today to voice their disappointment.
But SB 180 wasn’t good policy. It’s unfortunate it even made it through the Democrat-controlled legislature and onto Ritter’s desk.
It would have hurt financially strapped municipalities and special fire districts, and usurped control from towns and cities. In Colorado, local control matters.
The Colorado Municipal League, which opposed the bill, called it an “intrusion of the state into the employment practices and policies of local governments and the citizens who elect them.”
State law doesn’t prohibit firefighters from collective bargaining, nor should it, but local decisions need to be made at the local level, especially when it comes to personnel matters and wages and benefits. That’s not a state issue.
For example, voters in Longmont last fall approved collective bargaining for public safety employees. It was their choice. Voters in Fort Collins turned down a similar measure.
Had SB 180 become law, they would have lost that voice, which Ritter noted in his veto message.
Firefighters already are implying the veto would make their dangerous jobs even more dangerous because they won’t have a place at the negotiating table to talk about safety.
Ritter thinks the safety issues raised by SB 180 should be addressed statewide, not just in the communities affected by the bill. He has since directed the Department of Public Safety to work with the Colorado Professional Firefighters, the Colorado State Fire Chiefs Association, the Colorado Municipal League, and others to develop a statewide certification program for fire department safety and, if necessary, implement legislation for the 2010 legislative session, according to his office.
No one wants our firefighters to go without the equipment they need to keep themselves, and us, safe. But this bill wasn’t about safety; it was about wresting away local control.
