My organization, the Public Safety Employees Association (PSEA), represents approximately 800 Alaska police officers from Ketchikan to Barrow. PSEA is affiliated with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, an organization of 1.6 million American public employees. PSEA is also a member of the National Troopers Coalition (NTC) and the Western States Troopers Conference (WSTC) -- both of which are made up of largely Republican and conservative members.

PSEA is extremely concerned and offended by the recent attempts to villainize public employees as the cause of the 2008 economic meltdown and continued financial woes of the nation. Common sense is that public employees did not cause this problem by virtue of being a government employee -- the thought alone is ludicrous and the evidence indicates otherwise. This is scapegoating at its worst and every citizen should be personally offended by it.

Despite common sense and evidence, current politicians are propagating this nonsense in an attempt to balance their budgets on the backs of public employees. Their rhetoric is that no public employee should have the ability to bargain collectively or have the right to join a union. It is sad, but true, that the only politicians pushing this philosophy belong to the Republican party and/or the tea party movement. If it were members of the Democratic party or other political movements pushing this idea, they would also be under attack by public employee unions and every other labor organization.

I am a Republican and proudly espouse the conservative ideals upon which the party was founded (i.e. personal responsibility and accountability, self-sufficiency, hard work, ethical and moral behavior, small government, liberty and such). Sadly, the party has not lived up to its own ideals. Republicans and Democrats alike have been caught with their "hands in the cookie jar" when it comes to corporate deals; and both have been caught with their pants down (literally) inappropriately.

All of this makes it hard to stand with Republicans pointing blaming fingers at Democrats and others. In light of this newest attack on public employees, as a Republican, it is doubly difficult to exonerate Republicans and tea partiers and view them as the "white hats." Both parties have behaved badly, but it is Republicans who now attack public employees as the blame for a problem they did not cause and seek to establish laws that remove their rights. Not only does this seem un-Republican; it is completely un-American.

Some may say that this problem belongs to certain Lower 48 states (like Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, New Jersey, Ohio, Iowa, and Michigan) and is not Alaska's problem. But rest assured, what happens in other states will find its way to Alaska -- we have seen this repeatedly over the past 5-plus years; the recent Tier IV 401(K) public employee "retirement" debacle being the most stark reminder. Even now, some of our own Alaska Republican legislators have submitted a right-to-work bill against public employees. This bill contains similar language to those proposed in the listed Lower 48 states. Yes, there are some in our own Legislature who want to remove the right to belong to a union and the ability to bargain collectively.

What's worse, while other states have been motivated by budget deficits, Alaska's Republican sponsors of this legislation are doing so while our state sits on $12 billion in surplus money received. That's $12 billion just sitting in savings accounts over and above the governor's proposed budget and exclusive of the Permanent Fund.

PSEA stands with AFSCME, NTC, WSTC, AFL-CIO, and a host of other labor organizations against these efforts to take away our rights. The right to collectively bargain does not cost. It simply gives government employees the right to sit down with their employer and bargain over wages, benefits and work conditions. This simple fundamental right created the middle class which has made the United States of America the world's super power. Collective bargaining is not a partisan issue -- and it is an issue of right and wrong.