Romney Bemoans Union Contracts Would Prevent Mass Firing of Federal Workers

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)We all have regrets in our lives. Even Mitt Romney, who told a group of high-roller donors that he regrets that federal workers are protected by union contracts, so that if the GOP nominee for President wins the election, he won’t be able to fire as many workers as he’d like to. In the same secretly recorded video where he calls half the nation freeloaders, one of the attendees at the $50,000-a-head fundraiser at billionaire Marc Leder’s posh mansion urges Romney to “clean house” in federal agencies, including Wall Street watchdogs the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Mitt says he’d love to cut a wide swath through the federal workforce, but his hands are tied by union contracts. “When you hear comments like this, the next question you have to ask is: Where do you start?” National Federation of Federal Employees spokesman Cory Bythrow told the Wall Street Journal. “Do you want to reduce the number of food safety inspectors? The number of border patrol agents on our border, who are stopping human trafficking? Reduce air traffic controllers, who are keeping the skies safe? Once you get into specifics, you’re talking about services that really matter to the American people.” - based on reports on the AFL-CIO Now blog and in the Wall Street Journal; screen shot from video