------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Nov. 28, 2002 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
AFGE HEAD ON PRIVATIZATION PLAN: BUSH PLANS ALL-OUT WAR ON FEDERAL EMPLOYEES By Milt Neidenberg The federal workforce is the latest target of the Bush administration's anti-union blitz. In what one union leader has called an "all-out war against federal employees," the Office of Management and Budget has announced it will seek to eliminate 850,000 federal jobs over the next few years, sending a shock wave through the workers and their unions. This sweeping change would affect workers in virtually all functions of government and in every federal agency--from those monitoring the food we eat and caring for the country's war veterans to those administering Social Security benefits and other vital services. Top-level bureaucrats in the administration are being ordered to contract out to private companies work now done in-house by government workers. President George W. Bush wants 15 percent of the targeted 850,000 jobs gone by October 2003, growing to 50 percent within two years. Federal agencies are under strict orders to outsource jobs to the private sector. The plan is to rig the bidding process to make sure this happens. Was this huge assault on the workers voted on anywhere? No. The administration is doing it through a revision of federal regulations. An inter-agency group unearthed a 1955 regulation known as Circular A-76, which defines the rules governing competition between public and private sector organizations. Basically, the regulation, passed 47 years ago, showed a "preference" for public sector workers to provide governmental services. A 64-page proposal will allow federal agencies to wipe out those preferences, following a 30-day period. And the sweeping changes don't require congressional approval. The document recommends details (Circular A-97) on how federal agencies can assist state and municipal agencies in privatizing their services, too. At a time when state and local governments have huge budget deficits, they will be only too glad to work closely with federal agencies in contracting out jobs to non-union, low-wage companies. The human cost will be enormous as this vengeful privatizing, with its downsizing and layoffs, victimizes millions of workers and their loved ones. The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the largest federal employee union, representing 700,000 workers nationally and overseas, has correctly described this anti- union, anti-worker ploy as political payback. According to a number of union officials, the administration would have the authority to award contracts to whomever it wants. It would have total political discretion to award friends and contract out government services to its profit-driven clients, which will wind up costing the taxpayers more. AFGE President Bobby L. Harnage Sr. points out that federal workers have more expertise and experience than any outside contractors. He charged that the Bush administration has "declared all-out war on federal employees. ... This administration is selling the federal government at bargain basement prices to their corporate friends who then make campaign contributions back. This is not about saving money. It's about moving money to the private sector." (New York Times, Nov. 15) This move to privatize close to a million jobs comes on the heels of the infamous Homeland Security legislation, which is set to merge 22 federal agencies under one giant super- agency, stripping the federal unions of their collective bargaining rights. In the name of national security, it allows the employers to screen out thousands of government workers and terrorize them all. The Bush administration has decided to turn back the clock and phase out the current workforce and its unions, which have been dedicated to serving the public for over half a century. LESSONS FROM THE PAST Nevertheless, all these nefarious plans could backfire if the labor movement applies the lessons of the past. History has confirmed over and over again that growth and gains made by the trade unions are inextricably woven and integrated into the broader political struggles of the multinational mass movement. The AFGE leadership and its rank and file should know this all too well. The union is now in its 70th year of existence. It received its charter from the American Federation of Labor on Aug. 18, 1932, in the midst of the worst capitalist crisis in history. The birth of this union was part of the historic struggles, led by class-conscious workers, progressives and communists, that built the organized labor movement. The union started in 1932 with 500 chartered members and has since grown to over 600,000 members. The history of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), one of the largest unions in the country with over 1.4 million members, also confirms that a period of activism for social and political change is favorable for unions. The civil rights and women's struggles, the anti-war movement of the 1960s and 1970s, and the resulting "war on poverty" were instrumental in opening the doors to the growth of the federal, state and municipal work force. This brought waves of African Americans, Latinos, women and other low-paid service workers who were politically more conscious into the public sector unions. When New York District Council 37 of AFSCME, the largest public sector city union in the country, celebrated 50 years of growth in 1994, it put out a statement saying that the union's advances "paralleled gains by the civil rights movement, as poor and working class people fought not only for civil rights, but for a fair share of income and security in a wealthy land." The truth is that Dr. Martin Luther King did much to build the public sector union movement. In fact, he was assassinated while supporting the sanitation workers of Memphis. It was the sacrifices of King and millions of others who took to the streets that brought about pro-labor legislation--not the goodwill of the Democratic Party, which claimed the credit. The organized labor movement, including the public sector unions, cannot continue to look to the Democrats, as they did in this election. When these so-called friends of labor capitulated to the Bush administration on the war, that only whetted the appetites of the capitalist politicians to hack away at unions. It is crucial that the public sector unions and the labor movement in general not become isolated from their historic allies: people of color, women, youth who need jobs and a decent education, seniors without health care and pensions, the increasingly desperate unemployed, and the lesbian, gay, bi and transgender workers. Currently, these multinational forces are growing frustrated and angry. Along with an anti-war movement that is getting stronger, they constitute a powerful force for change. The hundreds of thousands of people who marched and rallied against the war on Oct. 26 are now reaching out to even larger forces for national actions on the Martin Luther King weekend in January. The message to the Bush administration: that the war against the Iraqi people and the war against labor are unacceptable. This fightback demands closer ties between the organized labor movement and the diverse, class-conscious and militant movement in the streets, in the tradition of the historic struggles that led to the explosion of trade-union growth in the 1930s. - 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]>
