August 25, 2005

Dear Working Families e-Activist,

Your members of Congress can give all their constituents a big Labor Day gift by pledging not to privatize Social Security—America’s most successful family protection program.
Shortly after Labor Day, Congress will begin work on President Bush’s plan to replace Social Security’s guaranteed benefits with risky private accounts—and in the process slash benefits, rack up massive new federal debt for our children to pay off, open Social Security up to corruption and possibly raise the retirement age.

Please send a message to your senators and representative right now urging them to pledge to oppose Social Security privatization. Click on the link below:

If we convince enough members of Congress to sign the pledge, President Bush’s plan to privatize Social Security won’t stand a chance. It won’t be easy, but together we can do this.
When Congress gets back to work in September, the push for private accounts will begin quickly with the House Ways and Means Committee taking up H.R. 3304, a bill by Rep. Jim McCrery (R-La.) that privatization proponents claim is a new idea to stop the “raiding” of Social Security by Congress.

Wrong! The McCrery bill is the first step toward President Bush’s plan to privatize and ruin Social Security—and nothing more. It creates private accounts, cuts guaranteed benefits, increases the national debt—and does absolutely nothing to stop the raids on the Social Security surplus or keep the program solvent.

Our members of Congress need to STRENGTHEN Social Security—America’s most successful family security program—not privatize it. Click on the link below now to urge them to pledge to oppose Social Security privatization:

http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/PledgeforSocialSecurity

Privatization plans would fatally undermine Social Security by tossing out the program’s promised benefits in exchange for no-guarantee privatized accounts. More retirees would live out their years in poverty because of huge benefit cuts. In the first 20 years alone, privatization could add $4.9 trillion to the federal debt. And privatization would open Social Security up to political corruption and Enron-ization, because politicians would chose which Wall Street firms could make billions off privatized accounts.

Tell Congress to protect workers and their retirement this Labor Day season. Urge them to sign the pledge to oppose Social Security privatization. Click on the link below:
http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/PledgeforSocialSecurity

Thank you for taking action for retirement security.

In solidarity,

P.S. Read the Pledge to Strengthen Social Security:

I pledge to the people of my district and to the American people that I will work to strengthen retirement security, including Social Security. I will oppose Social Security privatization proposals that would:

1. Require cuts in guaranteed benefits to pay for private accounts.
2. Weaken the system by diverting money from the Social Security Trust Fund to pay for private accounts.
3. Increase the federal deficit to pay for private accounts.
4. Increase the retirement age.

August 16, 2005

AFGE Tells Homeland Security: Get smart and scrap personnel system.

Now that a federal judge put it on hold because of illegal labor-management and employee appeal provisions, AFGE is telling the Department of Homeland Security to scrap its proposed personnel system (MaxHR). DHS representatives are meeting this week to determine a plan of action following the decision. The only right decision is to start all over again. Oh, and this time get it right by working with AFGE and department employees. AFGE members should contact their members of Congress and request that hearings be scheduled and that the personnel system not be funded.

DHS thought it could get away with its attempt to the abuse the power Congress granted it to create the new personnel system, and stomp on the U.S. Constitution in the process, but AFGE was there at every step to challenge DHS’s illegal proposals. Now we’ve won a major victory and will be calling on Congress to put DHS on a shorter leash and send this nasty dog to obedience school, lest Congress be fooled again.

The Department of Defense, which is designing a similar system called the National Security Personnel System (NSPS), should also scrap its proposals and start over again because NSPS is just as egregious. NSPS contains provisions that are just like those that were found to be illegal in MaxHR. We now have increased momentum and will put a stop to NSPS, MaxHR and the push to enact similar personnel changes in all federal agencies. We will succeed and union rights will be preserved throughout the federal government. Justice will prevail in the end.

On Friday, August 12, U.S. District Judge Rosemary M. Collyer sided with AFGE by ruling that DHS violated the law permitting the creation of the Department of Homeland Security because its approach to labor-management relations and employee appeal provisions effectively would render union representation and collective bargaining meaningless. AFGE has been saying this for over a year and we were finally heard. Friday’s decision marks the second major victory in a week that AFGE won that preserves union rights. On August 10 the Federal Labor Relations Authority Chicago Region affirmed AFGE’s right to represent import inspectors of USDA. AFGE had been the exclusive representative of the inspectors since 1968 until USDA declared the inspector ineligible for union representation in October of 2003 because of alleged national security needs. The FLRA ruled that USDA’s argument was bogus and affirmed AFGE’s right to represent the inspectors. We believe this is the first instance of union rights being restored to workers who lost them based on an alleged national security rationale.

For more information on the DHS MaxHR Ruling, go to:

http://www.afge.org/index.cfm?page=HomelandSecurity&Fuse=Content&ContentID=85
Or Visit www.DHSWorkers.org

August 15, 2005

AFGE CALLS FOR FRESH START ON HOMELAND SECURITY WORK RULES

Unions win on DHS labor rules, DoD next
By Shaun Waterman
United Press International
August 15, 2005

The decision of a federal judge to block implementation of a new human resources system at the Department of Homeland Security could hamstring efforts to reform personnel regulations at the Pentagon and other government departments.

Judge Rosemary M. Collyer of the District Court for Washington, D.C. Friday blocked implementation of new rules governing employee-management relations at the huge new department, which with 180,000 employees is the second-largest agency of the federal government.

Collyer ruled that "significant aspects" of the new regulations, published Feb. 1 after lengthy but ultimately stalemated consultation with labor unions, "fail to conform to the express dictates of the Homeland Security Act" of 2002 -- the law that set the department up.

Five labor unions representing 60,000 of the department's employees sued to stop the new rules being implemented, saying they illegally restricted the role of collective bargaining and labor unions, and unfairly deprived employees of due process in disciplinary matters.

In her ruling, Collyer found that "The new human resources system has failed at one of its basic requirements: It does not ensure collective bargaining rights" for the department's employees, which the Homeland Security Act had specifically required it should.

"This ruling is a clear message to the administration," Charles Showalter, president of the National Homeland Security Council told United Press International Sunday.

"They must deal with the unions and they must respect collective bargaining."

The National Homeland Security Council is part of the American Federation of Government Employees, one of the five unions bringing the case.

Mark Roth, general counsel for the federation, told UPI that the National Security Personnel System currently being developed for the Department of Defense shared many of the characteristics of the new rules at Homeland Security.

Roth said the unions were suing to block the implementation of the Defense Department rules on similar grounds, and that Friday's judgment ought to necessitate a rethink at the Pentagon too.

"This ruling will have a direct impact on our case" against the Pentagon, he said.

The National Security Personnel System was mandated by the 2004 National Defense Authorization Act. Passed in November 2003, the law gave Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld the authority to establish a new human resources management system for civilian employees at the Pentagon.

According to the Pentagon, the system "will create a new framework of rules, regulations, and processes -- rooted in the principles of flexibility and fairness -- that govern the way civilians are hired, compensated, promoted, and disciplined" in the department.

Roth said that the 2003 statute has even stronger protections for union rights and collective bargaining than the Homeland Security Act.

The victory in the homeland security case was "huge but not total," he said. "We have an even stronger case" on the Defense Department system.

But he added that he would not be surprised if the administration tried to force the new rules through anyway.

"The Defense Department management and the Office of Personnel Management has been incredibly arrogant about this," he said, adding that they adopted a "rigid position" which had made it "difficult for the people we were talking to (at the Defense Department) to meet us halfway" during talks about the new rules.

The final version of the rules is currently set for publication sometime in mid-September, Roth said, but added that with Friday's ruling "all bets could be off."

No one at the Defense Department could be reached for comment Sunday, but a Homeland Security statement said they were studying the ruling.

"The department is evaluating the impact of the recent court ruling on the labor and employee relations provisions of the (new) regulations and will consider next steps," said the statement, adding the rules "establish a flexible and contemporary system and their implementation remains a top priority for the Department of Homeland Security."

The issue of labor relations in the new department was perhaps the most controversial aspect of the congressional debate over its establishment.

Republicans accused some Democrats of holding the department hostage to the demands of the labor unions, and one of the fiercest proponents of collective bargaining, Sen. Max Cleland, D-Ga., was narrowly defeated at a subsequent election after opponents ran TV adverts accusing him of trying to damage homeland security, and comparing him to Osama bin Laden.

Congress eventually gave wide latitude to the department -- working with the Office of Personnel Management -- to develop a new personnel system, free from the restrictions of the laws which govern employee-management relations for the rest of the civil service.

The 2002 law, Collyers' ruling said, enshrined three principles which should guide the development of this new system: "That it be flexible, contemporary, and... 'ensure that employees may organize, bargain collectively, and participate through labor organizations of their own choosing in decisions which affect them.'"

But the new regulations, she wrote, gave a greater emphasis to flexibility than to maintaining collective bargaining, because they "would allow (department management) to reject any term of a collective bargaining agreement negotiated under the new system if a subsequent ... policy or regulation were deemed inconsistent (with it)."

"It's like the contract is written in disappearing ink," said Roth of the way the new rules allow management to void any provisions incompatible with departmental directives.

Collyers pointed out that, though the parties "disagree on the necessary attributes of collective bargaining" there is "at least one irreducible minimum that is missing from the (new) human resources system: a binding contract."

"When good-faith bargaining leads to a contract that one side can disavow without remedy, the right to engage in collective bargaining ... is illusory," she wrote.

She added that the new rules also unacceptably reduced the role of the government's main labor regulator, the Federal Labor Relations Authority, and of a federal whistleblower protection watchdog, the Merit Systems Protection Board.

"Because the human resources system elevates flexibility above the equal statutory requirement that it ensure collective bargaining rights, and because (it) improperly interferes with the Federal Labor Relations Authority and the Merit Systems Protection Board, the Court will enjoin its implementation," Collyers concluded.

Robert Shriver, assistant counsel for the National Treasury Employees Union -- another one of the unions that sued over the regulations -- said that the elements of Collyers ruling which related to the Federal Labor Relations Authority might also be relevant in the case over the Defense Department rules.

That part of the ruling was "derived from general principles of administrative law," he told UPI.

Homeland Security management was "Trying to direct (the authority) to play role a in its new system different from and contrary to its role as laid down by Congress" when it was created.

"They basically tried to make it a court of appeal (for disciplinary matters) which would rule under a standard that was very deferential to management," he said.

Collyers found that this was unlawful. "The Court is convinced that (the Department of Homeland Security) cannot commandeer the resources of an independent agency and thereby fundamentally transform its functions, absent a clearer indication of congressional intent."

Copyright 2005 by United Press International.

August 14, 2005

Homeland Security Dept. Loses Labor Rules Fight
Source: NY Times
By ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON, Aug. 13 - A federal court has struck down personnel rules adopted by the Department of Homeland Security, saying they violate the rights and protections given to employees by Congress.

In a ruling on Friday night, Judge Rosemary M. Collyer of Federal District Court said the rules did not "ensure collective bargaining" as required by the law that created the department. The rules were to take effect on Monday.

Employee rights were a huge political issue in debates over creation of the department, which consolidated 22 federal agencies with nearly 180,000 employees in an effort to prevent terrorist attacks in the United States.

Judge Collyer, who was appointed by President Bush, said the 2002 law gave federal officials "extraordinary authority" to develop a personnel system without regard to many of the constraints normally imposed by Civil Service laws. But, she said, the Bush administration exceeded even the "broad authority" granted by Congress.

"Significant aspects of the human resources system fail to conform to the express dictates of the Homeland Security Act," Judge Collyer wrote.

The decision applies just to the Homeland Security Department. But it has broader implications because the White House has described the rules there as a model for changes it would like to make at other federal agencies, including the Defense Department.

Joseph W. LoBue, a Justice Department lawyer who worked on the case, refused to say whether the government would appeal the decision. "We don't have any comment," said Mr. LoBue, who was reached at his office on Saturday. "We are reviewing it."

Under the personnel rules, Judge Collyer said, "the Department of Homeland Security may be required to bargain in good faith," but "there is no effective way to hold it to that bargain." Under such circumstances, she said, "a deal is not a deal, a contract is not a contract, and the process of collective bargaining is a nullity."

In other words, Judge Collyer said, "collective bargaining would be on quicksand" because the department could unilaterally "absolve itself of contract obligations" while employees and their unions would be bound by those agreements.

"The Department of Homeland Security has reserved for itself the right to declare any part of any collective bargaining agreement null and void" by issuing directives or taking "whatever other actions may be necessary to carry out the department's mission," she said.

The rules, issued in February by the Department of Homeland Security and the federal Office of Personnel Management, said the agency needed "flexibility to carry out its vital mission." Homeland security officials "must be able to make split-second decisions to deal with operational realities," the department said.

Judge Collyer also criticized procedures adopted by the Bush administration to dismiss, demote and discipline employees of the Department of Homeland Security.

These rules, she said, do not provide "fair treatment" or "due process" for employees who appeal disciplinary actions.

The lawsuit was filed in January by the National Treasury Employees Union, the American Federation of Government Employees and several other unions. Together, they represent 60,000 career employees of the Homeland Security Department, including customs and border protection officers, immigration officers and agricultural inspectors.

Judge Collyer has experience in labor law. President Ronald Reagan appointed her general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board, a position she held from 1984 to 1989. The procedures at the Homeland Security Department, she said, do not meet any definition of collective bargaining.

"Collective bargaining," she said, "has at least one irreducible minimum that is missing" at the department: a binding contract.

"A system of 'collective bargaining' that permits the unilateral repudiation of agreements by one party is not collective bargaining at all," she said.

Colleen M. Kelley, president of the treasury employees union, described the ruling as "a victory for the rights of employees in all federal agencies."

She predicted that it would "reverberate through the entire federal employee community, inasmuch as the administration has proposed extending the department's personnel model" to other agencies.

August 11, 2005

Labor Leader Offers Locals 'Solidarity'
Source: NY Times
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

The A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s president, John J. Sweeney, moved yesterday to minimize the damage that the schism within organized labor would do to city and state labor federations.

The Teamsters, the Service Employees International Union and the United Food and Commercial Workers have quit the A.F.L.-C.I.O. over the last two weeks, saying the labor federation is not doing enough to reverse labor's tailspin. Those three unions represent more than four million workers, nearly one-third the membership that the labor federation had before those unions quit.

When they withdrew, Mr. Sweeney sternly noted that under the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s constitution, locals in those unions no longer belonged to city and state labor federations. He said he would look for ways to allow continued cooperation. Many union leaders said they feared that as a result, labor's effectiveness at the city and state level - in politics, lobbying and collective bargaining - would be undermined.

In many cities and states, the service employees, with 1.8 million members, is by far the most politically active union.

Yesterday, after being urged by local labor leaders, Mr. Sweeney proposed allowing union locals in the departing unions to rejoin state and city labor bodies as special affiliates if they signed a new "solidarity charter."

"It's not these locals' fault that their national unions left the A.F.L.-C.I.O., and it's not working people's fault," Mr. Sweeney said. "They shouldn't have to bear the brunt of a decision by their leadership. Solidarity charters will allow unions to work together and let working people still benefit from a united grass-roots movement."

Mr. Sweeney sent a letter to the members of the federation's executive council to urge them to approve the plan - such approval is widely expected. Mr. Sweeney said he sent the letter after the heads of many locals in the seceding unions urged him to allow them to remain as members of state and city labor bodies.

Dennis Hughes, president of the New York State A.F.L.-C.I.O., praised Mr. Sweeney's proposal. "These solidarity charters will allow unions in New York to continue to work together and maintain a united front to fight for working people's issues," he said.

When locals within the disaffiliated unions sign these new charters, they can remain in the city and state labor councils, with full voting rights. But under Mr. Sweeney's proposal, officials from those locals can no longer hold top offices in the city and state bodies, although people already in office can finish their terms. In addition, the locals that rejoin will pay a 10 percent "solidarity fee" beyond their usual dues to help offset the cost of services provided to state and city labor bodies by the national A.F.L.-C.I.O.

Another major union, Unite Here, which represents apparel, hotel and restaurant employees, has signaled that it also plans to quit the labor federation. In addition, the International Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners left the A.F.L.-C.I.O. in 2001, and its locals will, as a result of the solidarity charters, also be allowed to remain in state and city labor bodies.