Looking Ahead

What's in store for this year?

Labor will be plenty busy fighting for workers' rights at a time when Congress can be downright unfriendly.

• Congress last year approved a welfare reform bill which tossed out the window all the old rules and guarantees by shifting control of welfare from the federal government to the states. The bill affects every AFSCME member, opening up social service jobs to privatization and flooding the job market with low-wage labor. Public employees may be replaced by welfare recipients, who may be put in those same jobs for less compensation.
• Take a look at Congress' treatment of its own staff to get an idea of its attitude toward workers' rights: Congress approved the "Congressional Accountability Act" which gave its employees the right to organize. Unfortunately, the legislators stalled and blustered until the October deadline for action passed, leaving Hill staffers without the right to collective bargaining. Oops.
  1997 could be a long year.

By Alison S. Lebwohl