Bush Signs Executive Order Barring Union Rights

U.S. President George W. Bush issued an executive order on Monday that defined the primary objective of some 8,600 federal agency employees to be national security-related, rendering them ineligible for Federal Labor-Management Relations Program coverage such as collective bargaining rights. The order says:

The subdivisions of the Departments of Energy, Homeland Security, Justice, Transportation, and the Treasury set forth in … this order are hereby determined to have as a primary function intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national security work. It is further determined that chapter 71 of title 5, United States Code, cannot be applied to these subdivisions in a manner consistent with national security requirements and considerations.

Last year, Bush threatened to veto an anti-terror bill if provisions allowing Transportation Security Administration airport screeners to unionize were included in the final version of the bill. The Senate adopted a weakened version in which collective bargaining over working conditions would not extend to pay, TSA screeners would not be permitted to strike during times of emergency, and the government would be permitted to "take whatever actions may be necessary to carry out the agency mission during emergencies, newly imminent threats, or intelligence indicating a newly imminent emergency risk." In 2005, a federal court blocked the Bush administration's personnel rules which would have stripped all Department of Homeland Security employees of their collective bargaining rights.