Posted on 11/22/2019 7:48:17 PM PST by mdittmar
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WASHINGTON – The American Federation of Government Employees is echoing a call from 43 U.S. Senators for Congress to take immediate action to prevent the White House from undermining the collective bargaining rights of federal employees.
In a letter sent today to Senate leadership and appropriators, the senators say that the FY 2020 funding bill being finalized for next year must include House-passed language that would prevent President Trump’s political appointees from unilaterally stripping federal employees of their collective bargaining rights and protections against whistleblower retaliation and other mismanagement.
“Robust labor unions are a hallmark of competitive workplaces – they lead the fight for better benefits, protections, and working conditions,” the senators wrote. “The Trump Administration’s anti-union agenda undermines the government’s ability to attract talented workers and demoralizes workers currently in public service.”
The letter was signed by 43 Senators, led by Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Ranking Member Gary Peters of Michigan. Also signing the letter were all U.S. Senators currently running for president: Sens. Michael Bennet, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren.
The Senate letter follows a similar letter sent to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House appropriations leaders in September from 217 House lawmakers, led by Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland. Both the Senate and House letters urge lawmakers to adopt language included in the House-passed Financial Services and General Government Appropriations bill (HR 3351) in the final FY 2020 funding measure. This language would prevent federal agencies from unilaterally imposing anti-worker management edicts in the place of negotiated collective bargaining agreements. The language would also require agencies to abide by current law and bargain in good faith with federal employee unions.
President Trump issued three executive orders last year designed to bust federal labor unions and eliminate workplace protections for federal employees. Agency leaders appointed by the administration are using the executive orders as the basis to repudiate existing contracts and impose anti-worker provisions that have not been negotiated with the union. These illegal changes have allowed agencies including the Environmental Protection Agency and Education Department to evict union representatives from office space, deny employees access to fair representation at the worksite, unilaterally exclude employees from telework, discard agreements used to enforce employment laws and policies at the worksite, and remove employees who have voluntarily joined AFGE from union membership without their consent.
“Now that a federal court has lifted the injunction on the executive orders, it’s open season on federal employee unions and our collective bargaining rights,” AFGE National Secretary-Treasurer Everett Kelley said. “If Congress fails to act, there could be nothing preventing the administration from decimating our contracts and stripping all federal employees of basic rights and protections at the worksite. On behalf of the 700,000 federal and D.C. government workers AFGE proudly represents, I urge Senate and House leaders to protect our democracy by including this language in any appropriations bill that becomes law.”
So you would like border patrol agents to go on strike? I guess you dont care about illegal immigrants.
“Robust labor unions are a hallmark of competitive workplaces...”
Even in government work, I doubt a more convoluted sentence has ever been created.
Workers collective bargaining against the Treasury is outrageous.
Pfffft.
A lame excuse to do nothing.
Umm no. I believe that he passed that bill in 61 or 62.
Just commenting on history of tomorrow’s date.
I will always remember... not with glee, I assure you.
Go on strike.
Well after doing many salary surveys for Cities, Counties & Federal Agencies in the 90’s even then they were making 20% more than the same job in the private sector. Now more like 40%. as you went up the management levels it reversed. That is why they have to take bribes/s
The post office was going on strike too but changed their minds after Patco strikers who refused to go back to work were fired.
I remember when Kennedy got shot, I was in 6th or 7th grade and all the kids were cheering...Yay the blank lover is dead.
There was no love for JFK in Fla in the 60s.
I would agree that most, if not all of these public sector union pension plans will be in trouble shortly and are not sustainable it must be drastically dealt with sooner rather than later.
I was referring to the say police officers union defending an officer who was in a fight with a suspect and that suspect was tased And it was deemed to be a proper use of force by investigators, but an angry leftist SJW mob decided it was police brutality and a liberal mayor or councilmember try to throw the officer under the bus to appease said angry mob.
I was talking to a family member who worked in a unionized factory in the private sector. A member of the management team picked up a piece of debris that had been dropped on the floor, and was clearly a trip hazard. Well the union filed a grievance because he did not call for a Unionized janitor to pick up said Debris, Consequently the janitor who is assigned to clean that area got an extra four hours of overtime pay because a manager did his “work”.
Yep that’s definitely competitive. /s
Government employees, PUBLIC SERVANTS... Should never have been allowed to Unionize in the first place.
When POTUS, Donald J. Trump gets re-elected in a massive landslide victory in November, 2020....the federal government labor unions will begin to die unless they radically change their ways. The vast numbers of the American public and taxpayers have seen career federal workers at work, undermining, the USA, American Nation Republic. You idiots...your jobs are at stake...you better wise up...and get with the program...or you will not have your jobs in the very near future. You all screwed yourselves!!!
cash cow threatened uh oh
I cannot even imagine “all the kids cheering” or something like that. I was 7 years old and remember as though it were yesterday. Such an utterly devastating day for the country, regardless of which side politically people were on.
If Federal employees want workplace protections, they should just do the jobs they are being paid to do, instead of viewing porn and playing games. The AFGE sucks!
Federal Labor - Two words that do not go together
Govt workers do not need a union. It needs to be abolished.
“I cannot even imagine “all the kids cheering” or something like that.”
Well I can assure you they were all cheering, southern demonrats like George Wallace hated Kennedy.
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