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 [Defense Department] 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.”

Gage says of today’s appeals court action.

While we are disappointed with today’s ruling, this is far from over. We have a couple of avenues for appeal, and in the meantime will continue with our aggressive legislative strategy. In the end, there is no doubt in our minds that DoD employees will be treated fairly and in a just manner.

Greg Junemann, president of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE), part of the UDWC, says:

We will continue to work to put NSPS to rest, no matter how long that takes. NSPS is a creation of former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and, much like his tenure at the Pentagon, it has been a complete failure.

The Bush administration tried to impose similar workplace rules on 160,000 Department of Homeland Security workers, but federal courts also blocked much of that effort.

The Defense Department also failed to win a provision in the bill to privatize military firefighters. The Fire Fighters (IAFF) worked with the House Armed Services Committee, which earlier this month rejected the privatization scheme.

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