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By Harry
Kelber
Faced with a federal appeals court ruling against the personnel system
it
unilaterally imposed on its 160,000 employees in 2005, Homeland Security
officials said they would abandon their anti-worker rules and "proceed
with
labor relations pursuant to applicable law."
The court's ruling means t hat Homeland Security will be required to
respect the right of unions to represent their employees in collective
bargaining and to open the door to negotiations on wages, benefits and
conditions of employment.
It was an embarrassing defeat for President Bush, who, in 2004, had
announced plans to transform federal personnel rules so that government
employees would be deprived of many basic rights, including the right of
collective bargaining through their chosen union representatives.
The Bush administration's initial targets were the several million
employees at the Defense Department and the Department of Homeland
Security
(DHS), whose workers had been represented by unions for years. It used
the
September 11, 2002 tragedy as the basis for instituting anti-union
rules,
arguing that to protect the country against terrorism required the
government to exercise tight control over its employees.
When DHS began to implement its new, restrictive rules in 2005, a number
of
unions, led by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE),
filed a suit that led U.S. District Court Judge Rosemary Collyer to
block
the department from going ahead.
The coalition of unions conducted a many-sided campaign against the DHS
personnel system, appealing to Congress, arguing in the courts and
taking
their case to the general public. Union leaders challenged the Bush
administration to explain how allowing unions to negotiate contracts for
workers was a threat to the nation's security. (The Defense Department
also
had to retreat from its plan to deprive its civilian employees of basic
worker rights.)
A year later, a three-judge federal appeals court panel turned down the
Homeland Security appeal and wrote that the new personnel system "not
only
defies the well-understood meaning of collective bargaining, it also
defies
common sense." The court also said the new workplace ru les "do not even
give
the illusion of collective bargaining" and that parts of it are simply
"bizarre,"
AFGE General Council Mark Roth said the Bush administration acted
"shamefully" by misusing the 9/11 tragedy "to push the right-wing's
anti-union agenda." He said DHS workers were 'ecstatic' that their
bargaining rights were protected.
Colleen Kelly, president of the independent National Treasury Employees
Union (NTEU), said : "The labor regulations DHS wanted to implement-and
the
White House wanted to extend throughout the government-were an effort to
reduce employee workplace rights and give managers the unfettered
discretion
to alter fundamental working conditions, essentially at will."
President Bush, during his eight years in office, has also used the
Labor
Department and presidential executive orders to undermine worker rights
and
hamstring unions, with some success. Unions must continue to remain
alert to
Jan. 20, 200 9 when Bush will no longer occupy the White House.
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