A bill will be introduced Friday in the Senate State Affairs Committee that would “prohibit public sector collective bargaining, to provide for public employee rights, and to prohibit public employee strikes.”
With the bill’s introduction, Idaho teachers are no longer the only scapegoats in our Statehouse. If such legislation passes, firefighters, police officers, and educators will all lose the ability to negotiate for fair treatment. Less than a decade after 9/11, you have to wonder: Whatever happened to honoring our heroes?
Idaho is riding – and in some ways leading – a national wave of legislation targeting people who serve the public. Similar bills against public employees have been introduced in New Jersey, Ohio, and Wisconsin, where an estimated 25,000 people surrounded the state Capitol in Madison to protest today.
Idaho’s latest anti-public employee legislation, now identified as RS20248, will be carried by Sen. Shirley McKague (R-Meridian).
