KINDER'S COMMENTARY: COLLECTIVE BARGAINING FOR PUBLIC EMPLOYEES COMING UP SHORT

A gigantic struggle is playing out in your state Capitol over the issue of collective bargaining for public employees, and by the time lawmakers headed home this week, it was beginning to look as though the wheels were coming off the effort to pass it. By Wednesday and Thursday, the House took up the bill, and majorities were approving what are known in the trade as killer amendments. These amendments include one extending collective-bargaining rights to -- employees of the House and Senate! Veteran vote counters were estimating that last week, at least, proponents were still about seven votes short.

Reports came trickling out of a closed House Democratic caucus meeting of a fractious and sharply polarized session on the issue. One veteran rural Democrat from a conservative southern Missouri district was reportedly told he would lose his committee chairmanship if he didn't come through with a vote for the bill. Strong-arming of this nature is an inflammatory tactic, rather like the old adage about striking a king -- you'd better kill him if you're going to try it -- and wasn't going over well.

Neither were calls to wavering House Democrats from Gov. Mel Carnahan. The governor featured collective bargaining as a centerpiece of his legislative agenda in his January State of the State message, generating applause from most -- but by no means all -- House and Senate Democrats. Many of the latter are grumbling about why they are being put into this vise for the sake of mobilizing Big Labor in the governor's U.S. Senate campaign next year. Asked to jeopardize their House seats on that altar, more than a few are saying, "No thanks."

One truly bizarre note was sounded by, of all people, the National Rifle Association. Somebody put out a letter on NRA stationary endorsing collective bargaining, triggering enraged responses from their usual allies, including at least one senator who resigned from the group that has done so much to defend the rights of law-abiding gun owners. This was a fight the NRA had no business entering. It will rank among the worst decisions anyone in that outfit's leadership has ever made.

God bless the good folks of the Missouri State Teachers Association. These fine people, the very model for teachers groups across America, have mobilized against collective bargaining as never before. Early on in January, MSTA lobbyists were in my Capitol office telling me that their board had authorized a six-figure amount for their campaign against the bill. You may be hearing some of the fruits of that expenditure in the splendid radio ads, paid for by MSTA, now running statewide. Moreover, and even more effective than the radio ads, rank-and-file MSTA visitors have flooded Capitol hallways to do the kind of direct, face-to-face lobbying that will never be improved upon.

If by some strategem proponents succeed in ramming the bill through the House, this writer and a dozen colleagues will be waiting for it, guns, ammunition and Senate rules at the ready. Meanwhile, one veteran Scott County school superintendent, speaking for many in his group, told me last week that the day any such bill passes is the day he will retire.

Collective bargaining would permanently change Missouri for the worse. We should know a lot more this week as to whether the bill really is dead, or whether we senators will be spending lots of time debating it later this session. If we do succeed in defeating collective bargaining, credit will go to many, led by the MSTA.

~Peter Kinder is assistant to the president of Rust Communications and a state senator from Cape Girardeau.