Bush Attack on Defense Workers’ Civil Service Rights Challenged in Congress

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2007/05/18/bush-attack-on-defense-workers-civil-service-rights-challenged-in-congress/

Bush Attack on Defense Workers’ Civil Service Rights Challenged in Congress

by Mike Hall, May 18, 2007

The U.S. House of Representatives yesterday approved legislation to repeal major sections of Bush’s so-called National Security Personnel System (NSPS) that take away collective bargaining rights from more than 700,000 Department of Defense workers.

The move came just hours before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in a 2-to-1 ruling reversed a lower court’s decision from last year that blocked the Defense Department from implementing the NSPS. Attorneys for the federal workers unions that represent the department’s workers are examining the decision.

The repeal measure, part of the 2008 Defense Authorization bill, won overwhelming support in the House (397–27), but Bush has threatened to veto the authorization bill if the Senate passes a version that contains the NSPS rollback.

Says AFGE President John Gage:

We commend the House of Representatives for repairing the damage inflicted by the department’s misguided personnel system, instead of making improvements the insisted on creating a system, which eliminated collective bargaining rights.

Gage says the NSPS threatened wages and eliminated workers’ right to appeal serious disciplinary action to an independent party. The authorization bill’s provisions restore the workers’ collective bargaining rights under regular civil service laws, establish appeal rights and protect wage adjustments.

AFGE is part of the coalition of federal employee unions—the United DoD Workers Coalition (UDWC)—that has led the fight against the Bush attack on defense workers’ rights. The federal court that blocked those rules last year concluded the NSPS fails to “ensure even minimal collective bargaining rights.”

FULL story at link.