Senate Bill 280

Dear Editor
I would like to inform our community of pending state legislation that will sharply reduce the ability of an employer and
employee organization to bargain a mutually agreed upon contract.
Senate Bill 280 prohibits public employers from paying or contributing to payment for union leave even if both parties
agree upon the provision of leave time. As a result, bargaining representatives would be prohibited from conducting
business during work hours. In addition, employee representatives would be prohibited from investigating or handling
grievances/issues that arise during work hours.
Passage of Senate Bill 280 will create hardships for employees of the public sector, including but not limited to:
management, school district employees, state, county, and local government employees, public medical professionals, and
others.
The facts not recognized by the authors of this legislation include;
1) Most employee representation time involves workers who are released during the workday to assist in the
resolution of issues identified by management not issues employees raise.
2) Employee representation time is used to assist in problem solving with management and make the workplace
more cost-effective and efficient. The system works and creates savings.
3 Member representation on the job corrects small workplace problems, and identifies inefficiencies.
There is a reason employee representation time has been agreed to by both Republican and Democratic
Administrations management for decades it identifies and solves workplace problems and fixes inefficiencies
that in the end saves taxpayer money and benefits the public.
There is no extra cost because when determining the total labor cost of workers representation time has always
been included in the computation.
Employee representation is just that for employee matters. There is no employee representation time for
political purposes such activity is already prohibited. The irony is the non-union employees have the right to
address grievances at work and are even allowed to address legislators. Why would we pass a law that lets nonunion employees do this, but prohibit union employees from having the same rights? Labor management experts
agree that Employee representation time is important in resolving workplace problems in a collaborative manner.
Opponents of employee representation time seem to be doing so for political reasons to weaken the employee
Unions but in fact they are attacking a management tool that makes government efficient and saves taxpayers in
the long run.