|
|
The UNIONIST Local No. 644 Member of the National Council of Field Labor Locals American Federation of Government Employees AFL-CIO |
|
|
|
Representing field employees of the U.S. Department of Labor in Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia. |
|||
|
VOLUME XXI, ISSUE II |
APRIL\MAY\JUNE |
||
|
|
|||
|
THE PRESIDENT'S CORNER There seems to be an all-out attack on the Department of Labor, which severely impacts on DOL agencies to enforce the 184 labor laws that Congress has charged DOL with for more than 100 years. The NCFLL, the union that represents DOL employees, those federal workers who face the monumental task of enforcing these laws, has so far managed to save some of the programs. Last April, Secretary Chao proposed to transfer the $1.9 billion dollar worker compensation program for some 700,00 sick nuclear workers and their survivors to the Justice Department. The NCFLL, in a massive lobbying effort managed to convince many Republican congressmen to keep the program in DOL, create 200 jobs and provide the compensation for these workers. In December, amid a "rumor" of closing the Regional offices of the Women's Bureau, once again, DOL lobbied Congress, the AFL-CIO and all of the Women's Advocacy Groups, saving the Regional Offices Regional offices and the ability to provide women with vital information. This year the lobbying effort had to go to keeping the Veterans Rehabilitation Act enforcement in VETS, rather than transferring to the VA. This is 199 FTES, but more importantly, it is the only place these laws would be enforced and where Congress intended it to be. (Continued on page 3 President Corner) |
|
|||
| CONTRACTOR SENT VISAS TO TERRORISTS. Federal workers working in the Immigration & Naturalization Services (INS) should not be held responsible for the visas that were mailed to terrorist, says AFGE President Bobby Harnage. AFGE which represents 24,000 INS employees, is outraged and also is not surprised that the AFFILIATED COMPUTER SERVICES (ACS), INC. sent Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehi student visas six months after they hijacked tow airplanes and fatally flew them into the World Trade Center. Representatives Tom Tancredo (R-Col) and James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis) wrongfully says the INS is to blame, employees and all, instead of the Contractor. Tancredo called the INS " completely and totally dysfunctional " and " the Mickey Mouse Club of federal agencies." Sensenbrenner said the mailing of the visas "shows once again the completer incompetence of the immigration service to enforce our laws and to protect our borders." (Continued on page 3) |
||||
| LOCAL 644
EXECUTIVE BOARD Jim Weyrauch Dave Berestecky Sigmund Kozierachi Helen William Craig Dotson John Lechman John Savine Cindy Peist John Newby THE UNIONIST IS PUBLISHED BY LOCAL 644 AFGE, NCFLL, AFL-CIO Mailing address P.O. Boy 40394 Jim Weyrauch, Editor (215) 597-5183 THE UNIONIST is a participating member of the International Labor Communications Association, the Pennsylvania labor Communications Association and the AFGE Editors Association and prescribes to the required code of ethics of each. |
|
|||
| EDITORIAL: RISKY BUSINESS Awarding a large outsourcing contract to a company on financially shaky ground is flat wrong. The government's contracting rulebook, the Federal Acquisition Regulation, stipulates that financially unstable companies are not to be awarded federal contracts. To do otherwise puts at significant risk the viability of support services required by agencies, substantial sums of taxpayer dollars and possibly the fate of hundreds of federal employees. But that it what the Army did last August, when it awarded a $45 million contract to the IT Group of Pittsburgh to perform logistics services that had been done by 389 federal employees at Fort Rucker, Ala. Two hundred of these employees went to work for IT Group to save their jobs. Saddled by debt and a slump in revenues, IT Group filed for bankruptcy protection in January, only six months after the contract award. The same company is in fine to win another Army Logistics contracted, valued at $145 million, at Fort Benning GA. This contract decision could displace 1000 federal workers. The company is also vying for a Marine Corps base-support contract that could affect 400 federal employees at Camp Pendleton, CA In statements to Federal Times, the Army and It Group defended the award at Fort Rucker, saying the company can fulfill the contract. IT Group insists it has a plan to stay afloat and will perform the work. That remains to be seen. Within five months of the award, IT Group's CEO quit, the company laid off 400 employees, began shutting down 22 facilities and sold itself to another company, In short, the company the Army hired in August is now a very different organization (Continued on page 3) |
|
|
||||
| RISKY BUSINESS (Continued from p.2) The IT Group indeed may live up to the contract. But the Army took an unwarranted risk by entrusting important work and the fate of hundreds of employees in a struggling company. Worse, the Army and Marine Corps seems destined to repeat the mistake. Clearly, the system needs to be changed. Either the Federal Acquisition Regulations needs to strengthen or its application by the Pentagon should be more stringent. (Reprinted from AFGE Editors Association News, with permission from Federal Times from February 4, 2002) FIGHT TO SAVE DOL JOBS The battle to save jobs in DOL will be time consuming and costly. Local 644 needs all the help and support it can get. It will take most of the resources of the union to fight to keep jobs. This is not the time for freeloaders; this is everyone's fight. Don't hang back and expect to reap the benefits. THE JOB THAT MIGHT BE SAVED BY YOUR UNION DUES MIGHT JUST BE YOURS! BUY UNION BY E-MAIL Let your fingers do the shopping. For guaranteed all-union products at competitive prices with none of the hassles of "real-time shopping", go on-line to BuyUnionNow.com. The site features clothing, sports equipment, household goods and more. The site carries only products recommenced by the unions that produce them. |
(Continued from page 1 CONTRACTOR SENT
VISAS)
"There are two worlds in the federal workforce, the world of unaccountable contractors such as ACS, and the world of dedicated federal employees," said AFGE National President Bobby L. Harnage. "And the only Mickey Mouse Club I am aware of are the Goofys in Congress who continue to blindly support the privatization of the federal government for campaign contributions and increased profit margins for corporations at the expense of the taxpayers." "Experienced INS workers who have been working 12-hour shifts to fight the war on terrorism should not be wrongly accused for a contractors serious error," added Harnage. ACS, which is headquartered in Dallas, has over 900 federal contracts in 21 agencies that total more than $380 million dollars, according tot 2000 figures. According to corporate profile, the company's aggressive growth strategy has resulted in its acquisition of more than 50 companies since its 1988 inception including its 825 million purchase of Lockheed Martin's IMS Subsidiary. AFGE PRESS RELEASE March 14, 2002 (Continued from page 1 PRESIDENT'S) The overall cut back of 7 percent in the budget is severe. The threat of contracting out is real and the transferring of vital functions of DOL enforcement is looming. If this is an "pay back" for the AFL-CIO not supporting the Administration in the last election, it is flawed, this harms many millions of un-organized workers, veterans and women who have not union or union contract to protect them. I don't believe that is what Congress or the Administration really wants. At least I hope not. DOL needs to be fully funded and perform the emission that Congress mandated it to do. |
| BOTTOM LINE BY JIM WEYRAUCH NLRB figures show that the rate of union victories in 2001 continued its growth since 1986, although the number of union elections continued a decline since 1998. In the first six months of 2001, 1200 union elections were held compared to 1559, in the same period in 2000. Unions won 54.5 % of the elections in 2001, compared to 53.2% in 2000. The win rate stood at 48.1% in 1986. Unemployment figures for African Americans were over 10 % in November 2001, twice the 5.1 % for whites, after reaching their lowest record level of 7.2% in September 2000. Meanwhile, PEW Hispanic Center calculates that earning and poverty levels of Latinos will not return to the pre-recession levels until 2004, trailing recovery among other ethic groups. The National Association of Immigration Judges, an AFL-CIO affiliate representing the nation's 220 immigration judges, asked Congress to remove immigration courts from the Justice Department's control The judges are concerned that Attorney General John Ashcroft's executive orders curtailing immigrant rights have caused a conflict of interest, and that due process can not be guaranteed if Ashcroft oversees both immigration judges and the Immigration and Naturalization Services. This makes the first time the group has taken a public stand on an issue. New York's Central Labor Council asked affiliates not to participate in the ST Patrick's Day Parade on Fifth Avenue until Lesbians and gays are permitted to participate. Unions were encouraged to participate in an alternative all-inclusive parade in Queens.
|
LESS MONEY FOR OSHA, MORE TO INVESTIGATE UNIONS The Labor Department wants to cut the amount of money government spends on health and safety enforcement and education and training, and spend more on auditing union finances and monitoring union elections. Nearly $8 million would be cut from the OSHA budget, requiring the elimination of 84 full-time positions from support and other areas. The most severe cuts would come from training grants, mostly to unions. Meanwhile, the administration wants about $4million more than the previous year to be used, in part, to 40 new staffers to monitor unions. At least one in every hundred unions would audit every fiscal year to determine compliance with "fiduciary safeguards" under the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act. The AFL-CIO questioned how the Bush administration could spend more money to investigate unions while planning to cuts in programs "that directly enforce workers' job based rights and protections. (Reprinted from Union Communications Services (I1CS) News Service) SERVICE JOBS RULE Eight out of every 10 American Jobs will be in the service sector by 2008, according to a new report by the AFL-CIO's Department of Professional Employees. The report based on government data also said that 98% of the nation's growth between 1998 and 2008 will be in the service sector. |
