Don't Sacrifice Labor Movement

Philadelphia
On Sept. 10, union members who responded to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and local labor leaders here held a press conference urging U.S. Senators Arlen Specter and Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania to vote for civil service protections and collective bargaining rights for federal employees in the much-debated homeland security department.

There is growing concern among labor supporters that the Bush administration will strip away collective bargaining rights for several thousand workers who have benefited from years of union representation. Under the newly created security department — which Congress is currently wrangling over — those workers could lose their ability to appeal arbitrary firings or demotions.

At the press conference, Joseph Conzo, a New York City emergency medical technician and member of AFSCME Local 2507 (DC 37), explained the vital role he and other union employees played during the attacks on the World Trade Center. "We lost 3,003 brave Americans that day — 634 of them were our brothers and sisters in the labor movement. When duty called, none of them thought for a moment about their contracts or any other issue. They had a job to do, and they did it."

Added Conzo, who was trapped in rubble for 20 minutes before crawling to safety, "The public service employees who responded on 9/11 know better than anyone that a secure homeland requires a secure workforce. Union members aren't obstacles to homeland security. We are homeland security."

Tom Cronin, president of AFSCME Council 47 in Philadelphia, said: "As public employees, we believe the public has a lot at stake in this debate over whether employees in the new homeland security department will have civil service protections and collective bargaining rights.

"The civil service system is based on some very important principles: federal employment that is efficient, fair, open to all, free from political interference, and staffed by honest, competent and dedicated employees."