The new rules affect about 110,000 employees. They put in place a single pay system based on “performance incentives,” rather than wage scales based on job classification and seniority established by union contracts.

The rules include an expansion of “non negotiable management rights”; a ban on bargaining with the union on procedures, and limits on negotiations between supervisors and union representatives “on the impact of a management action.”

Union officials said that these and other provisions weaken union protections such as negotiating over where employees are assigned, type of work and equipment they will use, extent of overtime, hiring of contractors, and other issues.

The White House announced it will ask Congress to grant all federal agencies similar authority to rewrite civil service rules governing their employees.

“We really have created a system that rewards performance, not longevity,” Kay Coles James, director of the Office of Personnel Management, told the Washington Post January 27. According to government officials, employees covered by the program would no longer receive a regular pay increase. They will receive a raise only by meeting performance standards set by the department. Employees rated “less than fully successful” will not receive pay increases, said a fact sheet on the rules released by the DHS.

A similar plan is being put together at the Department of Defense. According to the Washington Post, this plan would apply to more than 700,000 civilian employees of the Pentagon. Together with the new DHS rules, the two sets of measures would affect nearly half of the government’s 1.8 million civilian employees.

“The rules overturn 25 years of Civil Service Law, radically reduce the rights of federal employees over important issues, and deprive them of a voice over important issues like the time and place of work,” said Gregory O’Duden, general counsel of the National Treasury Employees Union, one of the four plaintiffs.

“They have been after the General Schedule system for a while, and this is just an easy excuse to dismantle it government-wide,” said Colleen Kelley, president of the union.  
 
Federal employee unions file lawsuit
The National Treasury Employees Union and three other labor unions have filed a lawsuit in federal court in Washington, D.C., against the new rules.

In addition to relying on the courts to turn this latest attack around, union officials have criticized the new rules using arguments that mirror the patriotic demagogy put forward by the White House to justify the union-weakening measures.

“At a time when we need to focus our resources on protecting the nation’s security,” the Bush administration is “taking away fundamental rights from the very people entrusted with guarding our borders,” said AFL-CIO president John Sweeney.

The White House, however, is precisely using the banner of “fighting terrorism” not only to weaken but potentially to get rid of federal employee unions. The government is also setting a precedent that it can use in the future to impose similar restrictions on unions in private industry under the pretext of a “national security” emergency.  
 
Decline of union membership
This course by the government and union officials, as well as the employers’ anti-union offensive, has led to a continuing decline of union membership. According to a report the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released January 27, the number of union members fell last year to 15.5 million, down 300,000 from 2003. This translates into 12.5 percent of all workers belonging to unions in 2004, down from 12.9 a year earlier. This figure reached 35 percent, its peak, in the 1950s.

The percentage of unionized workers in the private sector last year fell to 7.9 percent from 8.2 percent, the lowest since the early 1900s.

BLS figures show that public employees are the most heavily unionized. Last year, 36.4 percent of government workers belonged to unions. But even that represented a drop from 37.2 percent in 2003.

“The climate for workers who want to organize unions to better their economic situation is increasingly antagonistic,” AFL-CIO spokeswoman Sarah Massey told the New York Times, “and good jobs are still disappearing.”

In 2002 President George Bush issued an executive order denying union representation to more than 500 employees at the U.S. Attorney’s office and other divisions of the Justice Department. The White House claimed union contracts could restrict the ability of workers “to protect Americans and national security.”

On similar grounds, in January 2003 the head of the government’s Transportation Security Administration (TSA) signed an order barring airport screeners from union membership. He said collective bargaining is “not compatible” with “fighting terrorism.”

The TSA is a division of the Department of Homeland Security. TSA employees are not included in the new personnel system.

The new restrictions, and their planned extension throughout the federal government, have bipartisan support.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which would have to approve any relevant legislation, has come out in support of the White House rules. “We should see how it works before we consider whether it would be appropriate for agencies without critical national security responsibilities,” he said.
 
 
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Fight new restrictions on gov’t workers  
 
 
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