MMA testimony to Labor Committee opposing bills that would change binding arbitration rules

The Honorable John W. Scibak, House Chair
The Honorable Daniel A. Wolf, Senate Chair
Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development
State House, Boston

Dear Representative Scibak, Senator Wolf, and Members of the Committee:

On behalf of the cities and towns of the Commonwealth, the Massachusetts Municipal Association wishes to offer comments on legislation before the Committee at today’s hearing. We appreciate the Committee’s serious consideration of these important labor relations matters.

The MMA strongly opposes H.1692, which is a sweeping bill to amend Section 9 of Chapter 150E governing labor relations, and impose binding arbitration at every level of state and local government. In effect, the bill would create an unchecked system of binding arbitration, which would allow every labor union representing every bargaining unit, in every state agency and every city and town to sidestep traditional collective bargaining, and instead allow an arbitration panel of unaccountable, unelected individuals to impose costly and unaffordable contract awards on state and local taxpayers – awards that the legislative body would be mandated to fund regardless of the cost. Currently, there is a modified binding arbitration system in place for police and fire through the Joint Labor-Management Committee. This legislation would expand and impose a radical form of binding arbitration on all parts of state and local government, and totally undermine the collective bargaining process currently in place for state and local employees. We ask the Committee to reject this legislation, because it is unaffordable for taxpayers, and would destabilize the existing and well-functioning collective bargaining process used by state and local governments for tens of thousands of employees.

The MMA strongly opposes S. 972, which would change the longstanding rules governing binding arbitration for police and fire, and create a statutory mandate to grandfather all existing contract provisions into all future or successor contracts unless the provisions are specifically a subject of the arbitration procedure. The legislation would make it much more difficult to reach agreement and common ground during the bargaining, mediation and arbitration process, and significantly reduce the flexibility of the parties. Ironically, this legislation would create an incentive to maximize the number of issues in dispute during negotiations, and thus would increase the number of bargaining impasses and disagreements. We ask the Committee to reject this counter-productive legislation because it would make the bargaining process more conflict-ridden and difficult.

We appreciate your consideration of these very important local government concerns. The MMA looks forward to working with you on these measures and others throughout the legislative session. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to have your office contact me or MMA Legislative Director John Robertson at (617) 426-7272 at any time.

Thank you.

Sincerely,
Geoffrey C. Beckwith
Executive Director, MMA