Senate Republicans backed the Bush administration's adamant stance against collective bargaining rights and civil service protections for the 170,000 workers slated to make up a proposed Homeland Security Department when they voted Sept. 19 to continue debate and blocked a vote on legislation that maintained workers' rights.
Under Senate rules, 60 votes were needed to bring Sen. Joseph Lieberman's (D-Conn.) homeland security legislation (S. 2452) to a vote. The move to stop debate and vote on the measure failed 50–49. Lieberman and Senate Democrats support creation of a homeland security agency and are baffled at the administration's refusal to respect the workers' rights.
In a "Dear Colleague" letter to other senators, Lieberman said he was "disappointed by the administration's inordinate focus on this bright red herring, which threatens to distract us from our shared goal of creating a unified and accountable Department of Homeland Security....It would be a tragedy for us to scorch the substantial amount of common ground on which all our proposals have been built."
Under both the Bush administration proposal and S. 2452, several existing government departments and agencies and their 170,000 workers would be merged into one massive department. About 50,000 of the workers are union members, while the rest are protected by civil service laws.
"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," said AFGE President Bobby L. Harnage.
According to a poll by Peter D. Hart and Associates, 74 percent of Americans agree that workers in the proposed homeland security department should have the same job protections and rights to union representation as other federal employees.
Senate Republicans now are expected to attempt to pass a version of homeland security legislation similar to President George W. Bush's proposal, and a House-passed version gives the president unrestricted authority to strip workers of their collective bargaining rights and civil service protections.
In addition to their attack on workers' rights, Senate Republicans and the Bush administration oppose Davis-Bacon prevailing wage provisions for workers involved in emergency preparedness construction projects that are part of homeland security. Those provisions were included in S. 2452, but are not part of Republican proposals. Opponents erroneously claim that including Davis-Bacon in homeland security legislation would expand the law beyond its current application to include disaster relief construction activity. Davis-Bacon has covered federally assisted construction of emergency preparedness projects since 1950, when Congress enacted the Civil Defense Act, and it was reaffirmed by Congress in 1994, when the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was given responsibility for emergency preparedness.
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