Defense Worker Unions Fight to Overturn Bush Personnel Rules

(Press Associates Inc.)

By Mark Gruenberg, WASHINGTON (PAI)--Though they face "an uphill battle" in a top federal court, leaders of the unions representing 700,000 civilian Defense Department workers will fight to overturn GOP President George W. Bush's DOD personnel rules--upheld by a court panel--that virtually wipe out union and worker rights.  And they'll lobby the Senate to follow the House and repeal the rules.
     The 3-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Columbia reinstated Bush's rules, which give managers unlimited discretion over hiring, firing, pay, work rules, promotions, transfers and everything else, all in the name of "national security."  The rules also strip whistleblowers of their protection.  The unions said collective bargaining is not a threat to national security. Bush contends it is.
     In a May 21 press conference, three days after the 2-1 ruling, AFGE President John Gage, IFPTE President Greg Junemann, Metal Trades Department President Ron Ault and others said the battle is not just to protect defense workers, but all workers nationwide.
     That's because Bush's Defense Department rules are part of a coordinated campaign since the day Bush entered office to destroy the labor movement and rights of workers, union and non-union, they said.
      "You can sugar-coat this all you want, but it's the Bush administration's intent to get rid of unions and try to break the back of the American people, period," said Richard Brown of the National Federation of Federal Employees.
     "If you look at this administration, from the day they took office, with the Transportation Security Administration, with the DOD rules, with the (NLRB's) Kentucky River decision, that's what they want to do," Junemann said. 
     In the Transportation Security Administration, Bush banned unionization of the nation's airport screeners on "national security" grounds and has said he will veto legislation for the entire Homeland Security Department if it overturns his ban.  In the NLRB case, the Bush majority on the board ruled millions of workers could arbitrarily be called supervisors and deprived of rights.
     "It has nothing to do with national security.  It has to do with following the Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers," Junemann added of Bush's anti-union campaign.
     Lower court judge Emmet Sullivan had tossed the Bush DOD rules as breaking federal law which allows federal workers to unionize and bargain, but with some limits.  Another lower federal court judge, Rosemary Collyer, tossed similar Bush rules covering 135,000 workers in the Homeland Security Department.  A different D.C. Circuit Court panel backed her and bounced Bush.
     The contradiction, and the threat to the workers, led the unions to take the DOD rules case to the full appellate court, though AFGE counsel Mark Fox said that to succeed, it needs six of the panel's 10 judges to agree.  He called that unlikely.
     In the meantime, the DOD 40-union coalition, which also includes Change to Win members and the independent National Education Association, is lobbying senators to repeal Bush's rules.  The House voted May 17 to repeal them.  Gage said the unions were disappointed with the court ruling "but not totally surprised" since one of the judges in the majority "had come right out of the White House."
     "If this type of ruling" that federal workers could not unionize "happened in Libya or North Korea, it wouldn't surprise anybody.  But this is the United States," Junemann said.
     Since a full court hearing is unlikely, the coalition is turning to lobby senators to overturn the Bush rules by legally repealing them.  It also has enlisted outside groups, the AFL-CIO and has at least tacit support from leaders at military bases in the U.S. where huge numbers of the Defense Department workers toil.
     "This ruling will actually help in Congress" because leading lawmakers of both parties made clear that while DOD could reform its personnel system, they did not want to strip workers of their collective bargaining rights, Gage said. "This begs for a legislative solution, and we'll work very hard to let them (senators) know that," he added.
      Brown said the general commanding Barksdale Air Force Base told of the fine working relationship between the military and Defense Department civilian workers "and that he wanted nothing to disrupt it," including the Bush rules.
     Though the appellate court panel reinstated Bush's rules for the Defense Department's 700,000 rank-and-file workers--the rules already cover managers there--Gage admitted that workers would not start seeing changes tomorrow.  
     That's because the judges gave the unions 45 days to appeal, and another week for a reply.  And then the Bush administration, if it wins, has to set up the machinery of its new personnel system. 2005 Defense workers rally, photos by Chris Garlock