------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Nov. 21, 2002 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
EDITORIAL: HOMELAND UNION BUSTING The Democratic leaders in Congress have thrown the working class a body blow by agreeing not to block a Republican bill creating a Homeland Security Department that would strip 170,000 federal workers of union rights and/or Civil Service protections. Both houses of Congress are now expected to quickly approve the bill and send it on to Bush for his signature. The bill would consolidate 22 existing federal agencies and their employees under the new department in the largest reorganization of the federal government since World War II. At present, 50,000 of these workers are in unions, most of them represented by an AFL-CIO affiliate, the American Federation of Government Employees. The others are covered by Civil Service rules and regulations. The AFGE Web site explains that under the Bush plan, "if a manager arbitrarily downgrades your position and pay, passes you over for a promotion you truly deserve, or fires you because he or she doesn't like your political beliefs, there will no longer be a union or civil service law to protect you. It will be 'their way' or the highway." The Bush administration, which everyone knows is intimately tied to some of the most rapacious billionaires in the world, is using the climate of terror it has cultivated since 9/11 as a cover for good-old-fashioned union busting. It argues "homeland security" will be jeopardized unless the new department has "flexibility" in hiring and firing. The union says that this is nothing but "doublespeak for management freedom from unions who advocate fairness and taxpayers who demand that federal managers answer for their actions. Just ask the 1,000 Department of Justice employees who petitioned for union representation and then, on the same day, under an Executive Order sign ed by President Bush, were stripped of their union rights and civil service protections--all in the name of national security." AFGE President Bobby L. Harnage said in answer to the administration, "Union membership has never been inconsistent with national security. The right of federal employees to engage in collective bargaining has never undermined homeland security. Federal employees, their families and their unions are adamantly opposed to any effort to use the tragic events of Sept. 11 to advance stalled but longstanding efforts to bust federal unions." The Democrats who caved in said they got the bill drafters to add a few weeks of federal mediation before the new personnel rules go into effect, but the administration can overrule that. In effect, this is the most virulent piece of anti-labor legislation in decades. Even the New York Times of Nov. 13 explained that "The agreement gives the Bush administration a free hand to jettison Civil Service rules in promoting and firing workers in the new agency and allows the president to exempt unionized workers from collective-bargaining agreements in the name of national security." The capitulation came just days after an election where the unions had poured millions of dollars of their members' dues money into the campaigns of Democratic politicians. The working class in the U.S. makes up the overwhelming majority of the population. It has the skills and experience to run society on its own, for the benefit of the people and not the profiteers, without needing to take orders from any other social class. Yet it gives the appearance of being weak. This apparent paradox reflects the huge gap between consciousness and reality, and specifically the urgent need for the workers to become as conscious of their own class interests as the exploiters are of theirs. The rulers have become masters of deception, but they will be seen to have feet of clay once the workers are in motion. It is those who claim to defend and protect the workers who are weak, because they have one foot in the political institutions of the ruling class. It is time for militant unions to map out an independent program of struggle that looks to the great reservoirs of working class strength that have yet to be tapped. Such a struggle will surely burst forth as this government of, by and for the billionaires continues its merciless assault on the workers and oppressed of the world. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Support the voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
