State act would provide needed safeguards

While so much attention is focused on Iraq, ordinary events grind on. And nowhere is this more apparent than in Jefferson City, where Missouri lawmakers have only a few weeks left in this year's legislative session to address bigger-than-ordinary issues.

At the top of that list, of course, is passing a state budget that neither disrupts essential services nor places undue burdens on taxpayers.

But there are other important issues in the state capital, and one of them is a bill called the State Employees Protection Act that would give state workers some of the same protection already provided to employees in the private sector. The act contains a provision regarding the collection of union dues that has drawn a line in the sand between union officials and pro-business legislators.

There are three key components of the State Employees Protection Act, but only this one provision is generating a lot of debate. To understand the issue, it's important to recap a bit of recent history.

Gov. Bob Holden stunned legislators -- Democrats and Republicans -- when he signed an executive order soon after taking office that extended collective-bargaining rights to all employees in state agencies whose directors report to the governor. Over the years, many attempts had been made to get legislation to accomplish the same thing, but both the House and Senate, both controlled for half a century by Democrats, would not go along.

Holden's payback to union supporters in his successful 2000 campaign raised questions about state employees whose agencies might be unionized but who might choose not to join a union. Existing rules could force those employees to pay fair-share fees instead of union dues. Unions argue that even employees who don't join still benefit from union representation.

The State Employees Protection Act, sponsored by House Republicans who now control that chamber, would make paying the fair-share fees voluntary. Naturally, union leaders are opposed, knowing that few employees who forgo union membership are likely to want to pay anything resembling union dues. And those same union leaders fully understand their precarious position, now that both the House and Senate have GOP majorities.

It was wrong for Holden to change, with an executive order, established state policy -- a policy with a long legislative history -- regarding collective bargaining for state employees. Backers of the State Employees Protection Act are simply trying to preserve, for state workers who don't want to be union members, the same rights those employees had in this regard before Holden's order.

Meanwhile, two other provisions of the act appear to have widespread support.

One would prohibit state agencies from retaliating against employees who file for workers' compensation benefits for on-the-job injuries. Employees in the private sector already have this protection.

And the third part of the act would allow state employees to take full advantage of the federal Family Medical Leave Act. Courts on either side of the state has issued conflicting opinions about whether or not the federal act applies to state workers.

The State Employees Protection Act is a good effort on behalf of state employees.