TomPaine: Union Busting As Homeland Security

[marmar]

Union Busting As Homeland Security
Dick Meister
March 01, 2007



Copyright © 2007 Dick Meister, a freelance columnist in San Francisco who has covered labor issues for four decades as reporter, editor and commentator. Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister.com.

President Bush and his Republican allies in Congress agree that airport screeners play a vital role in the war against terror, yet continue to deny them the basic right of unionization by asserting that it would “threaten national security.”

The actual motive is as obvious as the often-demonstrated anti-unionism of Bush and friends. House members recognized that in January when they voted 299-128 for a bill that would repeal a provision of the five-year-old Aviation Transportation and Security Act that gives the president authority to bar screeners from exercising the collective bargaining rights granted other federal employees.

The Senate is about to take up the bill. But though the slim Democratic majority there is certain to support it, Republicans are threatening a filibuster that could block passage. Even if the measure should squeak through Congress, Bush has promised to veto it, and the GOP minority has promised enough votes to sustain a veto.

Bush and other opponents of the bill compare the 45,000 men and women who screen air passengers’ luggage with the men and women who are fighting in Iraq. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/03/01/union_busting_as_homeland_security.php

[no_hypocrisy]

1. In many eyes (corporate usually), the formation of unions has ALWAYS

been a "threat to national security". That's why the bosses would call in the police to beat in the heads of workers and strikers when they wouldn't put aside their principles.

[TheBaldyMan]

2. filibustering rethug bastards k&r'ed