Bush: Keeping working families poor and disempowered is more important than protecting them ...

Posted by Joshua Holland at 8:57 AM on February 28, 2007.

This is just disgusting:

President George W. Bush may veto legislation to adopt many of the remaining recommendations of the Sept. 11 Commission unless Senate Democrats drop a plan to allow airport screeners to join unions, a Bush administration official said.

A provision in the security legislation now before the Senate would give government-employed airport security screeners the right to bargain collectively for union contracts and whistle-blower protections.

"That would mean we would have to negotiate with the unions whenever we have to do an emergency deployment,'' Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told reporters.

Or whenever they have to negotiate a new contract.

He cited an instance last August when the agency introduced extra security measures after U.K. authorities uncovered an alleged plot to blow up airliners using explosive liquids.

God, this is a lame argument. You just need to negotiate a contract with the union that has provisions for overtime work in emergency situations.

Bush's senior advisers would recommend a veto of the legislation, which authorizes more than $9.3 billion over three years in security grants to states, if it contains union organizing rights for airport screeners, White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said.

"We vigorously disagree with those provisions in the bill,'' Stanzel said.

The Senate security legislation would implement the recommendations the Sept. 11 commission made two years ago that hadn't already been enacted. The measure includes a provision that requires $9.3 billion in grants be distributed with preference to cities that terrorists are most likely to target.

The Bush administration and Republicans defeated efforts by Democrats in 2002 to include organizing rights for TSA personnel when Congress passed initial legislation creating the Homeland Security Department.

You'd be hard-pressed to come up with a better illustration of the administration's real priorities.

Of course, this is part of a pattern of using security issues and "emergency powers" as excuses for naked union-busting. Remember that Reagan called the air-traffic controllers' strike a "peril to national safety" before breaking it (and the union's back). And let's not forget Bush's suspension of the David-Bacon Act while New Orleans was drowning.

Tagged as: bush, labor, dhs, 9/11 commission

Joshua Holland is a staff writer at Alternet and a regular contributor to The Gadflyer.