Legislature advances collective bargaining reforms

CARSON CITY – In a conference committee meeting late Sunday night lawmakers approved changes to a bill covering public employee collective bargaining.

The committee, which included three of the Legislature's four caucus leaders, agreed to change Senate Bill 98 to reduce the number of supervisors eligible for collective bargaining and mandate clauses that would re-open labor contracts during fiscal emergencies.

Assembly Republicans demanded the changes before they would agree to vote in favor of Assembly Bill 561, which would extend by two years the life on about $620 million set to expire July 1.

The taxes are key to a broader $6.8 billion budget agreement between the Democrat-controlled Legislature and Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval.

Under the changes to SB98, local government employees with the power to hire, fire, discipline, negotiate labor contracts for management or who are physicians or civil lawyers would no longer be eligible for collective bargaining.

"If you hire, fire or discipline you are out," said Assembly Minority Leader Pete Goicoechea, R-Eureka, who was on the conference committee and led Assembly Republican negotiations seeking the reforms.

Also, the changes call for state law to require labor and management to include in labor contracts provisions that would re-open the deals in the event of fiscal emergencies.

"You are going to define in every collective bargaining agreement what a fiscal emergency is," said Assembly Speaker John Oceguera, D-Las Vegas, who was also on the committee, to a group of local government, union and Chamber of Commerce lobbyists who crowded around the committee clamoring for details of the amendment, which wasn't distributed to the audience.