Defense Worker Unions Fight to Overturn Bush Personnel Rules
Thursday, May 24, 2007(Press Associates Inc.)
By Mark Gruenberg, WASHINGTON (PAI)--Though they face "an uphill
battle" in a top federal court, leaders of the unions representing 700,000
civilian Defense Department workers will fight to overturn GOP President George
W. Bush's DOD personnel rules--upheld by a court panel--that virtually wipe out
union and worker rights. And they'll lobby the Senate to follow the House
and repeal the rules.
The 3-judge panel of the U.S.
Circuit Court for the District of Columbia reinstated Bush's rules, which give
managers unlimited discretion over hiring, firing, pay, work rules, promotions,
transfers and everything else, all in the name of "national security." The
rules also strip whistleblowers of their protection. The unions said
collective bargaining is not a threat to national security. Bush contends it
is.
In a May 21 press conference, three days after
the 2-1 ruling, AFGE President John Gage, IFPTE President Greg Junemann, Metal
Trades Department President Ron Ault and others said the battle is not just to
protect defense workers, but all workers nationwide.
That's because Bush's Defense Department rules are part of a coordinated
campaign since the day Bush entered office to destroy the labor movement and
rights of workers, union and non-union, they said.
"You can sugar-coat this all you want, but it's the Bush administration's
intent to get rid of unions and try to break the back of the American people,
period," said Richard Brown of the National Federation of Federal
Employees.
"If you look at this administration, from
the day they took office, with the Transportation Security Administration, with
the DOD rules, with the (NLRB's) Kentucky River decision, that's what they want
to do," Junemann said.
In the Transportation
Security Administration, Bush banned unionization of the nation's airport
screeners on "national security" grounds and has said he will veto legislation
for the entire Homeland Security Department if it overturns his ban. In
the NLRB case, the Bush majority on the board ruled millions of workers could
arbitrarily be called supervisors and deprived of
rights.
"It has nothing to do with national
security. It has to do with following the Chamber of Commerce and the
National Association of Manufacturers," Junemann added of Bush's anti-union
campaign.
Lower court judge Emmet Sullivan had tossed
the Bush DOD rules as breaking federal law which allows federal workers to
unionize and bargain, but with some limits. Another lower federal court
judge, Rosemary Collyer, tossed similar Bush rules covering 135,000 workers in
the Homeland Security Department. A different D.C. Circuit Court panel
backed her and bounced Bush.
The contradiction, and
the threat to the workers, led the unions to take the DOD rules case to the full
appellate court, though AFGE counsel Mark Fox said that to succeed, it needs six
of the panel's 10 judges to agree. He called that
unlikely.
In the meantime, the DOD 40-union
coalition, which also includes Change to Win members and the independent
National Education Association, is lobbying senators to repeal Bush's
rules. The House voted May 17 to repeal them. Gage said the unions
were disappointed with the court ruling "but not totally surprised" since one of
the judges in the majority "had come right out of the White
House."
"If this type of ruling" that federal
workers could not unionize "happened in Libya or North Korea, it wouldn't
surprise anybody. But this is the United States," Junemann
said.
Since a full court hearing is unlikely, the
coalition is turning to lobby senators to overturn the Bush rules by legally
repealing them. It also has enlisted outside groups, the AFL-CIO and has
at least tacit support from leaders at military bases in the U.S. where huge
numbers of the Defense Department workers toil.
"This ruling will actually help in Congress" because leading lawmakers of both
parties made clear that while DOD could reform its personnel system, they did
not want to strip workers of their collective bargaining rights, Gage said.
"This begs for a legislative solution, and we'll work very hard to let them
(senators) know that," he added.
Brown said
the general commanding Barksdale Air Force Base told of the fine working
relationship between the military and Defense Department civilian workers "and
that he wanted nothing to disrupt it," including the Bush
rules.
Though the appellate court panel reinstated
Bush's rules for the Defense Department's 700,000 rank-and-file workers--the
rules already cover managers there--Gage admitted that workers would not start
seeing changes tomorrow.
That's because the
judges gave the unions 45 days to appeal, and another week for a reply.
And then the Bush administration, if it wins, has to set up the machinery of its
new personnel system. 2005 Defense workers rally, photos by
Chris Garlock