EDITORIAL
Homeland union busting
The Democratic leaders in Congress have thrown the working
class a body blow by agreeing not to block a Republican bill
creating a Homeland Security Department that would strip
170,000 federal workers of union rights and/or Civil Service
protections. Both houses of Congress are now expected to
quickly approve the bill and send it on to Bush for his
signature.
The bill would consolidate 22 existing federal agencies and
their employees under the new department in the largest
reorganization of the federal government since World War II. At
present, 50,000 of these workers are in unions, most of them
represented by an AFL-CIO affiliate, the American Federation of
Government Employees. The others are covered by Civil Service
rules and regulations.
The AFGE Web site explains that under the Bush plan, "if a
manager arbitrarily downgrades your position and pay, passes
you over for a promotion you truly deserve, or fires you
because he or she doesn't like your political beliefs, there
will no longer be a union or civil service law to protect you.
It will be `their way' or the highway."
The Bush administration, which everyone knows is intimately
tied to some of the most rapacious billionaires in the world,
is using the climate of terror it has cultivated since 9/11 as
a cover for good-old-fashioned union busting. It argues
"homeland security" will be jeopardized unless the new
department has "flexibility" in hiring and firing. The union
says that this is nothing but "doublespeak for management
freedom from unions who advocate fairness and taxpayers who
demand that federal managers answer for their actions. Just ask
the 1,000 Department of Justice employees who petitioned for
union representation and then, on the same day, under an
Executive Order sign ed by President Bush, were stripped of
their union rights and civil service protections--all in the
name of national security."
AFGE President Bobby L. Harnage said in answer to the
administration, "Union membership has never been inconsistent
with national security. The right of federal employees to
engage in collective bargaining has never undermined homeland
security. Federal employees, their families and their unions
are adamantly opposed to any effort to use the tragic events of
Sept. 11 to advance stalled but longstanding efforts to bust
federal unions."
The Democrats who caved in said they got the bill drafters
to add a few weeks of federal mediation before the new
personnel rules go into effect, but the administration can
overrule that. In effect, this is the most virulent piece of
anti-labor legislation in decades.
Even the New York Times of Nov. 13 explained that "The
agreement gives the Bush administration a free hand to jettison
Civil Service rules in promoting and firing workers in the new
agency and allows the president to exempt unionized workers
from collective-bargaining agreements in the name of national
security."
The capitulation came just days after an election where the
unions had poured millions of dollars of their members' dues
money into the campaigns of Democratic politicians.
The working class in the U.S. makes up the overwhelming
majority of the population. It has the skills and experience to
run society on its own, for the benefit of the people and not
the profiteers, without needing to take orders from any other
social class. Yet it gives the appearance of being weak. This
apparent paradox reflects the huge gap between consciousness
and reality, and specifically the urgent need for the workers
to become as conscious of their own class interests as the
exploiters are of theirs.
The rulers have become masters of deception, but they will
be seen to have feet of clay once the workers are in motion. It
is those who claim to defend and protect the workers who are
weak, because they have one foot in the political institutions
of the ruling class. It is time for militant unions to map out
an independent program of struggle that looks to the great
reservoirs of working class strength that have yet to be
tapped. Such a struggle will surely burst forth as this
government of, by and for the billionaires continues its
merciless assault on the workers and oppressed of the
world.
Reprinted from the Nov. 21, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyrighted
under a Creative
Commons License.
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