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Working Life
	Labor makes its voice heard (Published February 7, 2005) By JOSLYN N. WILLIAMS

D.C. City Council overwhelmingly passed emergency legislation on Feb. 2 to temporarily ban the transport of highly toxic cargoes through the city. The vote capped a highly effective grassroots lobbying campaign in which labor unions joined with environmental and community groups to lead a last-minute push. Councilman Vincent Gray, D-Ward 7, said that he received more e-mail on this legislation than any other issue in his brief tenure on the council (hundreds of Streetheat activists deluged all 13 council members with upwards of 2,000 letters). The bill has been the subject of discussion and debate in the city council for nearly a year, and its passage was spurred in part by the rail accident last month in rural South Carolina, in which nine people were killed by a toxic chlorine gas cloud, and the recent derailing of a commuter train in Los Angeles, when a man allegedly abandoned his SUV on the tracks, causing 10 deaths.

Area workers and residents will breathe a sigh of relief when this ban takes effect. Councilwoman Carol Schwartz, R-At Large, the lone vote against the bill, predicted that it will be challenged in court on constitutional grounds, but the bill's lead sponsor, Kathy Patterson, D-Ward 3, said that she's confident the legislation will withstand a legal challenge.

BUSH BRINGS BACK PATRONAGE: "George Bush wants to turn back the clock and return to 19th-century political patronage," says AFSCME Council 26's Carl Goldman in response to recent news that the Office of Management and Budget plans to propose revamping personnel rules across federal agencies. "The bottom line is that workers are going to lose their rights on the job," said Goldman.

The new personnel rules reportedly will resemble those already announced at the Defense and Homeland Security departments, which significantly narrow employees' rights to collective bargaining and all but eliminate any meaningful due process rights that currently enable employees to speak out when they see wrongdoing or mismanagement. Government worker unions say the rules are a direct attack on the civil service system created over a century ago to guard against a corrupt political patronage system in which political leaders required their appointees to devote time and money to party affairs. "This has profound implications for the entire country," says AFGE Local 12 President Larry Drake. "Everywhere our lives are touched by the government would be even more subject to political and corporate influence."

AFGE, along with the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), the National Federation of Federal Employees and National Association of Agriculture Employees, plans to file suit against the new Homeland Security personnel regs, challenging them on both a statutory and constitutional basis.

Goldman and other local government worker union leaders say they plan to organize grassroots opposition.

UNDER ATTACK, WORKERS STILL SAY 'UNION YES': The latest government statistics on union membership and job trends paint a decidedly mixed picture for American workers and the labor movement. Last year, more than 20,000 workers were fired or discriminated against in the United States for union activities, according to the National Labor Relations Board's recently released annual report. Another 50,000 state government workers in Indiana and Missouri lost their collective bargaining rights when the Republican governors in those states signed executive orders stripping workers of those rights. Despite these attacks, 42 million workers say they would vote for a union tomorrow if they had the chance.

READ IT FIRST ONLINE: Now you can keep up with the local labor movement 24/7, thanks to the Metro Washington Council's newly updated Web site at http://www.dclabor.org. Get the latest news on issues affecting area workers and the union movement, as well as a comprehensive calendar of events and activities by Metro Council programs, affiliates, constituency groups and allies. Plus, find or post union jobs in our "Hiring Hall" section.

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Williams is president of the Metro Washington Council, AFL-CIO. For the latest on the local labor movement, subscribe to the free UNION CITY e-zine at streetheat@dclabor.org.

Copyright 2004, The Common Denominator