By Kirstin Downey
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 1, 2007; B01

Police and firefighters unions in Virginia would gain collective-bargaining rights under a bill that passed the U.S. House by a wide margin and seems likely to pass the Senate, creating budget concerns among local governments.

The measure, approved by the House 314 to 97 last month, would permit public safety workers in all 50 states to negotiate with the governments that employ them over pay, benefits and working conditions. It passed easily after intense lobbying by police and firefighters unions to bring together pro-labor Democrats and pro-safety Republicans.

If the Senate approves the measure, it could have far-reaching consequences for Virginia, one of two states, along with North Carolina, that prohibit collective bargaining by public safety unions. It could mean bigger pay raises for tens of thousands of Virginia police officers, firefighters and prison guards, who typically must accept whatever raises their government employers choose to give them. It also could present government officials with escalating financial demands at a time when tax revenues have flattened.

The White House has taken no public position on the legislation.

"It's great," said Marshall Thielen, a firearms instructor for the Fairfax County Police Department and president of the Fairfax Coalition of Police. "It brings us on par with the mainstream of America. We're pretty backward here in Virginia in employer-employee relations."

Officials in Northern Virginia are wondering what it would mean to them.

"It certainly strengthens the unions' bargaining positions," said Paul Ferguson (D), chairman of the Arlington County Board.

Many government officials in Northern Virginia declined to comment on the bill, saying the implications are unclear.

Virginia is a "right-to-work" state, where unionism never won the same public acceptance it has in the industrial Northeast and Midwest. The federal legislation could force Virginia governments to negotiate with unions in an unprecedented way.

Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) said in a statement that he had not had a chance to study the legislation but that he believes "good managers should always be willing to meet with groups of public employees to discuss working conditions and salaries." When communication is good, "management has nothing to fear," he said.

The bill would give public safety officers the right to join a union, to have the union recognized by their employer, and to bargain collectively over hours, wages and terms of employment. The measure would allow the parties to seek mediation to resolve their differences, but it would not permit the workers to strike or to force their employers into binding arbitration.

A similar bill, with "broad bipartisan support," will soon be introduced in the Senate, said Laura Capps, a spokeswoman for Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), who chairs the Senate Health, Labor, Education and Pensions Committee.

The legislation would probably make public safety pay a big issue in some jurisdictions. The region's largest, Fairfax County, provides first-year police officers with $63,089 in total compensation, including benefits. Only Prince William County provides less, according to a survey of 10 area departments by the Fairfax Coalition of Police. In the District, total compensation for first-year officers is more than $72,000, and in Montgomery County, it is $69,000, according to the survey.

Virginia's Democratic representatives, Rick Boucher, James P. Moran Jr. and Robert C. Scott, voted for the bill, as did Republican Thomas M. Davis III. Voting against it were Republicans Eric Cantor, Thelma Drake, J. Randy Forbes, Virgil H. Goode Jr., Robert W. Goodlatte and Frank R. Wolf. Republican Jo Ann S. Davis did not vote.

Rep. Dave Weldon (R-Fla.), one of the few lawmakers to speak on the House floor against the bill, said he believes that it preempts states' rights to govern themselves.

"Our local cites and states are the best deciders of how to provide vital services to our citizens," Weldon said. "We should not tie their hands by establishing a 'one-size-fits-all' federal pattern that cannot hope to account for the unique conditions and structures that our states and localities face."

The National League of Cities also opposes the measure.

"The issue is that this is a federal mandate," said Donald J. Borut, the league's executive director. "The underlying principle is of concern to us."

But Rep. Dale E. Kildee (D-Mich.), who lives in McLean when Congress is in session and who first proposed the measure in 1995, said it is unfair that police who protect Fairfax County do not have the same collective-bargaining rights as officers in his home district of Flint. In Michigan, he said, "it works beautifully."

"The contrast is really horrible," Kildee said.

The measure's support in the House came from pro-labor Democrats and pro-public-safety Republicans, including such conservatives as Rep. J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.). Kildee said the intense lobbying by police and firefighters unions across the country has created what he called a "veto-proof margin."

Davis, one of the measure's 280 co-sponsors and a former chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, said he supported the measure because it seems fair that the nation's "first-tier defenders in the war on terror" should have the right to "meet and confer" with their employers.

"It's not any different from the culture we've had in Northern Virginia for a generation," Davis said in an interview. "They should be able to sit down and negotiate with us."

Local officials said they do not yet know enough about the measure to say how it could affect their budgets and operations. Davis said that, in his opinion, it "mandates only a discussion."

Fairfax Supervisor Sharon S. Bulova (D-Braddock) said the government communicates fully with its workers. "In Fairfax, we already have a system for very frank and constructive discussions on pay and benefit issues," she said.

But Thielen said there is much to be discussed.

"We refer to our union work here as collective begging," he said, because public safety unions have no right to take part in compensation negotiations. "It's 'take what you get,' " he said.