Bush Whacks Labor

By Jimmie Turner

Midway through his first term, the President has been working to sap union strength.  

Washington, D.C.
Just weeks after becoming the country's leader, Pres. George W. Bush sat down and wasted no time whittling away at valuable workplace and union protections. If anyone thought that his actions were merely one-time payback for labor's role in the Presidential election, that notion was sadly mistaken.

For two years, the Bush administration has continued to deny union members the rights and benefits they have enjoyed for decades. The President remembers how hard labor fought to keep him from being elected and it looks like he's in permanent payback mode.

His first blow: suspending and subsequently repealing a rule that prevents the government from awarding contracts to businesses that have broken environmental, labor, tax and other federal laws. Shortly thereafter, he issued four executive orders that undermine worker rights and dismantle effective working relationships between labor and management.

In another move that favors Big Business, Bush has vowed to privatize half — more than 425,000 — of the federal jobs that can be identified as commercial in nature. He even cast aside an ergonomics standard — promulgated by the Clinton administration — that former Labor Department Sec. Elizabeth Dole introduced during his father's tenure as President. The measure — a standard that AFSCME had promoted for a decade — would protect non-union as well as union workers. Some of his attacks have been carried out with no congressional or public debate.

Harming the green

Recently, AFSCME Council 26 members working for the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) have been stung by Bush's determination to deny or strip away hard-fought collective bargaining rights.

At the DOJ criminal division, Bush operatives have used the need for homeland "security" as a weapon to deprive employees of their union. A unit comprised mainly of clerks, paralegals and secretaries has suddenly become vital to national security. Supposedly highly sensitive jobs are in the office of special investigation, which has been investigating Nazi war criminals since the 1980s. Other positions are in the training and government fraud sections. Of the fraud unit workers, Kurt January, president of Local 3719, cracks: "Unless [Osama] bin Laden gets a government job, they won't be investigating him."

For the members, the reason for the move is clear-cut: "AFSCME was a big supporter of [Al] Gore," says January. "To me, it's obvious that this is payback. All of the members that I've spoken to are all displeased with what has happened. Given their positions and what they do, they see that this is just political."

The workers, he says, have already noticed a change in management's attitude. "Before, when they had union representation, there was more of a dialogue with managers where they would explain, ‘This is where we're going. This is why we're doing this. What do you think about it?' Now they're more autocratic."

January says that although the members haven't lost any pay or benefits, they can't negotiate contracts going forward. Their hope, in January's words: "A new President who is more favorable toward labor."

Now it appears that homeland security could affect a larger segment of unionized federal employees. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Mitch Daniels recently stated that Bush would veto any bill that doesn't give the homeland-security chief the power and "flexibility" to make personnel and resource decisions. In other words: Unions, stay away. (As this issue went to press, a switch by Rhode Island Sen. Lincoln Chafee, a Republican moderate, seemed likely to produce a compromise acceptable to AFSCME.)

FAA standstill

The FAA has been especially hard hit. It's been close to two years since 2,000 of its employees negotiated and ratified a first contract. Although Jane Garvey — who headed the agency until recently — was pressured by the Clinton administration to sign, she refused. Her actions have embittered members. "She has been no damn friend to labor," says Tom Waters, president of Local 3290.

In a move that Council 26 officials call unprecedented, FAA officials sent the contract to Bush political appointees in OMB for review. Employees lobbied Congress "on all sides of the aisle" to intervene in the dispute, and a Senate report directed Garvey to sign the contract. Waters believes her stubbornness to close the deal is personal. "It's because her ego is involved. She's totally disingenuous about her motives and is retaliating because we played hardball. Even the OMB said the final decision to sign the contract is the FAA's."

In addition, Waters feels that Garvey stalled until the Presidency changed hands and parties. "She knew the Bush administration would disapprove and she used that to get the heat off her to sign the contract."

Do unto others...

Garvey's appointment as FAA chief ended last August, and union members have hounded her all the way to the end. "We didn't want this war," says a defiant Waters. "But if she wants a war, by God we'll provide one."

About a year ago, Garvey went to Boston to receive an award from the chamber of commerce. A contingent of FAA activists went to the ceremony, passing out leaflets that outlined her anti-union practices.

About a week before her term ended, AFSCME members in Wisconsin joined FAA advocates who traveled there to demonstrate as she spoke at an Oshkosh air show. Waters says Garvey's people called the police.

Marion Blakey, the chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, was nominated and — in mid-September — confirmed by the Senate to fill the vacant FAA administrator post. At this writing, there is no clear indication of her attitude toward the contract.

A case for organizing

In June, a congressional hearing was held to discuss the tactics employers use to keep Americans from exercising their freedom to form unions. A stream of politicians, labor advocates and union members made the case that workers must be given the power to choose representation.

"Workers want to form unions because they know that unions are the best way to lift themselves out of poverty and improve their working conditions at the same time," said Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) "And because they have greater economic security, union workers in the United States are some of the most productive in the world."

Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.) explained that lax labor laws and anti-union lawmakers are slowly eating away at workers' fundamental rights. "I believe we are at a historic crossroads," he said. "Issues that were raging at the turn of the last century — and what we thought had been long settled many years ago — are resurfacing now at the turn of this new century.

"Today, instead of celebrating the participatory voice of workers, we are faced with the stark reality that ... workers who choose to organize live in fear," said Wellstone. "They live in fear of being harassed, of losing wages and benefits, and ultimately, of losing their jobs."

Teddy Lail, a program analyst with the FAA, testified about her frustrating experiences in trying to get the contract signed. "We have lobbied, litigated, picketed and done everything we could to get what we bargained for. But a year and a half later, the FAA still won't implement the contract — in clear violation of labor law and the direction from Congress."

Added Lail: "As a federal agency, the FAA should set a good example for companies. But in our case, they set the wrong example."