This issue currently is before the Nebraska Legislature. Encourage your state senator to support the amendment supported by Governor Heineman and business leaders.
The Commission of Industrial Relations is costly and inequitable to the financial health of Nebraska taxpayers. This state agency resolves labor disputes between state and local government employees, including public utilities, and their respective managements. According to the Commission, most cases involve public school teachers. The state constitution authorized this agency, and the legislature created the CIR in 1947. The primary objective of this third party arbitrator is to prevent public employees from striking and bringing to a halt public business. In an industrial dispute, an employer, employee, labor organization, or NE attorney-general by himself or on order from the Governor, may file a petition with the CIR, invoking its jurisdiction. The CIR determines who represents employees during collective bargaining, resolves disputes by establishing pay rates and employment conditions comparable to standards set for similar work, orders good faith bargaining, mediation, or fact-finding, and appoints persons to implement such. The CIR handles wage, sick leave, vacation time, work rules, and fringe benefit disputes most often. It accepts wage and conditions of employment cases upon request of one party after negotiation impasse. Union representation cases arise less often, as most public sector employees already are unionized. However, it is possible to decertify a current union, if there exists grounds for such action. The most damage to taxpayers involves wage disputes. Here, the CIR must consider the overall compensation of employees. This rule requires that overall compensation be comparable to the prevailing wage rates paid and employment conditions, like hours worked, for the same or similar work of employees exhibiting like or similar skills under the same or similar working conditions. The CIR considers vacation and sick leave and all benefits, including insurance and pensions. Both parties present evidence of proposed comparable arrays of pay and benefits. The CIR then selects an array(s) believed comparable and establishes wages and employment conditions based on “prevalent wages and conditions of employment of the selected array members.” Two key factors used by the CIR are comparable figures for geographic proximity and size of employer. The state supreme court has declared that the CIR is an administrative agency with judicial authority, that its proceedings must conform to the code of civil procedure used in district courts. A party may appeal its final decisions to the state Court of Appeals.
