by Tula Connell, Oct 19, 2006

In September, the Bush administration announced it would not appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court a ruling that barred its attempt to gut the workplace rights of 160,000 federal workers in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). This week, AFGE asked the judge who ruled on that decision to retain jurisdiction and maintain her injunction barring the Bush administration from imposing its new personnel rules. AFGE represents federal workers, including the largest constituency of Homeland Security workers in the coalition of unions opposing the Bush administration rules.

In a meeting with Judge Rosemary Collyer and representatives from Homeland Security and the Office of Per­sonnel Management (OPM), AFGE and the other unions involved asked the judge to maintain her prior injunction and send the case to Homeland Security and the OPM in accordance with the U.S. Court of Appeals decision that also found the labor relations parts illegal. Says AFGE General Counsel Mark Roth:

AFGE and its partners in the coalition…believe it is in the best interest for all involved if the injunction stayed intact while DHS and OPM reconsider their future recourse of action. The judge agreed with the unions, remanded the case, retained jurisdiction, and ordered DHS and OPM to provide a status report in nine months.

We hope that by dropping its appeal, DHS is signaling that it is open to taking union issues into concern. Previous negotiations did not go as we had hoped, but we are looking at this as a fresh start.

The Homeland Security rules are just part of a Bush administration move to revamp rules for the entire federal workforce. AFGE and other federal worker unions say the Bush plans would devastate the federal workforce by gutting pay, eliminating bargaining rights, rendering whistle-blower protections moot and wasting millions of taxpayer dollars.

The Bush administration also had moved to impose similar rules, known as the National Security Personnel System (NSPS), on more than 700,000 Defense Department workers. Those rules were blocked by a federal judge earlier this year after a coalition of federal worker unions—United DoD Workers Coalition—filed a lawsuit. The Defense Department has appealed that ruling.

Taking away the rights of workers at Homeland Security and the Defense Department is just part of the Bush administration’s war on workers. Read more here at the AFL-CIO BushWatch.

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