Chicago, Ill.
Whereas the Bush Administration submitted legislation to eliminate virtually all civil service protections for the Department of Defense’s civilian workforce days after it declared victory in the war against Iraq, and
Whereas these 720,000 civilian employees performed heroically, professionally and successfully to prepare not only our troops but also their weapons, military aircraft, ships, vehicles and other supplies for the combat mission just weeks before this assault on their rights and their livelihoods, and
Whereas AFGE represents 200,000 Defense Department civilian employees, and other AFL-CIO unions represent numerous other Defense Department civilian employees whose rights are threatened by this legislation, and
Whereas the legislation passed by the House of Representatives, which was given just two weeks to consider Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s radical plan, allows each successive secretary of Defense unilateral authority to design an entirely new personnel system for 720,000 federal employees, and
Whereas the House-passed legislation allows secretaries of Defense to eliminate civilian employees’ rights to appeal management decisions to suspend, demote, discipline or fire them, or go to the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) if they have evidence that such actions were taken on the basis of prejudice, politics, union status, a distortion of the facts or in violation of MSPB rules, and
Whereas the House-passed legislation allows secretaries of Defense to decide unilaterally to eliminate civilian employees’ collective bargaining rights, to effectively negate the outcome of employees’ election of union representation through the collective bargaining process, and to decide unilaterally to refuse to bargain at the local level even in cases where the union’s recognition as an exclusive bargaining representative is at the local level only, and
Whereas the House-passed legislation allows secretaries of Defense to decide unilaterally to rewrite the rules regarding procedures for carrying out Reductions-in-Force that currently require managers to take into consideration performance, employment status, veterans’ status, time served in the military and tenure, and
Whereas the House-passed legislation allows secretaries of Defense to rewrite the rules on hiring for federal positions that may deviate from the principle of free and open competition, including the bar on the hiring of relatives, and
Whereas both the House and Senate passed legislation that allows secretaries of Defense to replace the federal pay and classification systems that are based upon the principle of equal pay for substantially equal work, which has gone a long way to prevent pay discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity and gender. Both bills would allow secretaries of Defense to replace the current system’s nationwide, across-the-board annual pay adjustments passed by Congress with individualized “pay for performance” schemes that allow supervisors to decide whether and by how much to adjust the pay of individual workers, and
Whereas the Senate bill retains civilian employees’ collective bargaining rights, and rights to appeal adverse actions to an impartial third party but includes the repeal of the federal pay and classification system and authority to replace it with “pay for performance” that will undermine the principle of equal pay for equal work and the ability to ensure that decisions regarding the distribution of pay and pay raises to federal employees be made on the basis of objective criteria, and
Whereas, the undermining of the civil service, collective bargaining rights and the federal pay and classification system envisioned in the Defense Department legislation echoes that enacted in the law establishing the Department of Homeland Security; has been repeated with regard to pay and classification for federal employees who administer the Medicare program and are employed by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS–formerly HCFA) in the House-passed legislation providing prescription drug benefits for Medicare recipients, and
Therefore be it resolved that the AFL-CIO encourage all of its affiliated unions and organizations to inform the House-Senate Conference Committee working on Secretary Rumsfeld’s “National Security Personnel Plan” that they oppose the administration’s effort to undermine federal employees’ collective bargaining and appeal rights, civil service rights and pay and classification system in the Defense Department and other executive branch agencies.
Be it further resolved that the AFL-CIO will work in conjunction with the American Federation of Government Employees and other affiliated unions representing civilian employees of the Defense Department to support ongoing efforts designed to defeat this legislation and other legislation that undermines the apolitical federal civil service.