I have been honored to take the oath of office in all three branches of state government. The Legislative branch is the only I have served where the clerical and office staffers–many of whom have worked in their jobs for decades–are not unionized (with the exception of Assistant District Attorneys, but that will change quickly if the Governor’s plan to create a 1,000 lawyer unionized defense bureaucracy prevails). Many of the legislative staff, including my staffer with my support, want to join a union. Is there any particular reason why our legislative branch is not union? Will any union step up to organize them? If not, why not?
Please share widely!
Glad you are supporting unions.
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p>Show that you are a leader and do something.
I admit it may be too simple. They aren’t unionized because they serve at the pleasure of elected officials. A union in the State House would impair the ability of these officials to reward people who helped them with jobs. The people who have the jobs know this, and therefore they have much more incentive to please the hiring managers (the reps) than they do to form a union.
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p>The reps, conversely, have an interest not only in holding the keys to employment, but also in avoiding a union which might increase costs and make the jobs more ordinary, less special, and therefore more open market-ish. Instead of something someone should appreciate, it’s just another gig. All bad for the rep. And dealing with union reps at budget time, when the rep has the cherry sheet to worry about? Too much hassle.
The system I know is the House, it may be different in the Senate.
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p>Technically, aides don’t work for the Reps, but the Speaker. They are issued to Reps like a chair or photocopier. A Rep writes a letter to the Speaker saying – I’d like to hire Fred to be my aide, and the Speaker accepts/rejects. I am not aware of a Speaker rejecting a choice, but it may well have happened. The Speaker also determines if you will be Legislative or Administrative, or alone – some Reps have multiple aides, others do not. You can be a Chief of Staff while workign alone and supervise yourself. The names are just indicators of different pay.
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p>Some aides do not have regular hours – the hours are at the pleasure of the Rep. So setting work conditions would be difficult, as some Reps have aides work Fridays and holidays, and some only have aides come to the State House twice a week. So a unionization even for working conditions would be difficult.
While all staff is an employee of the House and therefore technically the Speaker – Aides actually work for and answer to the individual Representative. All Reps get one Legislative Aide from the beginning of their tenure and may at the Speaker’s approval hire additional staff who then become administrative aides by classification. Individual titles, such as Constituent Service Director OR Press Secretary are left to the Rep.
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p>Usually Aides are young and many are still in school, they may have worked on the Reps campaign or are active in the community or district of the Rep.
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p>Then there is Committee Staff such as researchers and Counsel positions – It is usual practice that these positions are hired on the basis of expertise in a certain subject matter such as health care or education. While under the direct supervision of the Chairperson of the committee – these staff work in an indirect way for the Speaker of the House. Many former “Aides” become “staff directors” when their Rep. assumes the chairmanship of any committee.
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p>In the House it is common practice that the committee staff will stay with the committee when there is a change in chairmanships. Many committee staff have been in working in their committees for many years, some for decades. (Same principal is used for receptionists who are treated as committee staff)
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p>Unionization would hamper the ability of an elected official from choosing his Legislative Aide and would not be conducive to the political process of elections that happen every two years in the State House.
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p>The Senate is different: I believe each Senator who is most likely a Committee Chairman gets an office stipend to divide among a certain number of staff…I never worked in the Senate so could not say for certain.
a punch-line to this post? Why does a union need to “step up” and organize them?
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p>If legislative workers want to unionize, who’s stopping them? It might be a good thing for your aide to do. He could even put it on his resume. I would suggest that he talk to his brethren in the other governmental branches and approach their union.
Title XXI Chapter 150E Section 1 Definitions:
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p>For purposes of the state’s public employee law, they’re not employees and any action to form a union on their part, would not be protected activity. If the Republicans really wanted to put leadership in an awkward position, they’d introduce an amendment to include certain employees of the legislature under this law, let’s see how much folks really support unions…
We’ll add this, along with the Open Meeting Law and Public Records Law, to the “do as I say” list of laws that apply to everyone other than the General Court. Interesting fodder for legislative remedy.
I’m the chair of my town’s renewable energy committee – as such, I have to obey open meeting law. So should the legislature! How about a ballot question in 2012? I’d work with you for that…
They WORK for elected officials, but so do staff at sheriff offices, probate, etc.
The way I read the definition is any person working in the executive or judicial branch of the government is an employee for purposes of the law (with some exceptions) but that anyone working outside of the judicial or executive branch (i.e. the legislature) is not considered an employee for purposes of this law.
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p>I’m not lawyer, so I’ll defer to those who know, but I took the “except elected officials” to mean that elected officials in the executive and judicial branch aren’t employees – I shouldn’t have bolded that part.
It seems there just might be a wolf in sheep’s clothing in this post.
1. Republican state representative who thinks very highly of himself and wants everyone to know just how extraordinary he is (oath of office in every branch of govt.) claims to support a traditionally solid democrat position to unionize legislative aides/clerks.
2. Republican state representative seeks media attention on weekly basis and this angle during the national brouhaha regarding public employees is a likely attention grabber.
3. Republican state representative wants to shake establishment democrats (a good thing) into answering why they have denied their very own people the fundamental rights to unionize.
4. Republican state representative is a smart attorney with ample resources to know the answer to his question without BMG bloggers needing to explain it to him.
5. Republican state representative gets a kick out of seeing his name in print and playing head games with progressives, democrats, people.
6. Keeping up with Danny Boy! is going to be a more interesting reality 2 years than the Kardashian series…..stay tuned.
7. Danny, this one’s for you!
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If the Republicans expanded collective bargaining rights to legislative employees and got the open meeting and public records law to apply to the legislature, we’d be in their debt. I’m not going to vote for them, I’ll campaign against them, but on these issues, they’re (hypothetically) right.
GOP doing something other than scoring a few cheap points?
even if it comes from the other side.
And certainly no threat implied in the following. It’s just that I can’t hear (or, apparently, read) any piece of “Danny Boy” without thinking of this scene. Warning: PG-13!
Great share, thanks.
Love the fact that he shot about 10,000 rounds of ammo out of that one clip! At full auto that clip should have lasted about 5 seconds.
Is there some workplace safety issue I’m unaware of?
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p>God knows their salaries are reasonable, and I can’t imagine someone who worked directly for a representative or senator would have trouble finding connections if they wanted a better job somewhere.
It’s cute and funny now but when you’re running in the 2014 Republican primary for (insert higher office here) you’ll have some explaining to do as the only candidate to propose expanding the number of unionized state employees.
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p>And wouldn’t it have been a lot easier to just say, “Beacon Hill Democrats are frauds for forcing other branches of government to deal with unions when they pass a law that exempts themselves from having to deal with unions.”
Or even the regular open procurement procedures. Except for successful, costly, and difficult constitutional challenges in our underfunded and backlogged courts, “the law” is whatever the legislature says it is.
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p>The legislature exempted itself from Open Meeting Laws and FOIA before I even moved here from Michigan – so I don’t know if it was the old “one party Repulican” legislature that did this, or a nearly all Democratic legislature.
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p>However, having a legislature that is subject to no open meetings laws, freedom of information requests, or the fair procurement laws is not a good situation. The fact that the legislature also exempted itself from being unionized is no surprise – just another freedom from accountability.
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p>What is it, the slogan of the new overlords in Animal Farm “All animals are equal but some are more equal.”
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p>It could well be “All governmental entities are equal in Massachusetts but the Legislature is more equal.”
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