Frank Carelli, Director

Government Employees

For years Federal Employees have been under the constant scrutiny of the media, Congress and other administrations. All the years prior to the current Bush administration pale in comparison to the outright assault he has launched on the Federal Sector of our union. Many of the issues are the same: privatization of government services, arbitrary across the board cuts in funding that hurt government programs, huge health care cost increases, another round of base closures, pay disparity and much more.

Executive Orders

The battering began soon after Bush took the oath of office. In February of 2001, he signed a number of Executive Orders (EO) that were detrimental to federal labor unions. Throughout his campaign for the Presidency, Bush professed to be able to reach across the aisle, to work out differences and to bring people together. And yet, in total contradiction to his campaign pledges and encouraged by a report from the Heritage Foundation, President Bush revoked Executive Order 12871 which established the National Partnership Council.

Executive Order 12871 was created under President Clinton in 1993. It required agencies to establish partnership councils with unions so that unions could participate in the agencies’ decision-making process.

The partnerships were supposed to foster a collaborative work environment where employee and agency concerns could be worked out to the benefit of all the parties including in many cases the American taxpayer. Moreover, because the Federal Unions have had a limited ability to bargain over a variety of issues, President Clinton had committed to increase the scope of bargaining over subjects set forth in 5 U.S.C. 7106(b)(1), or areas considered permissive. While the partnerships were far from perfect, unions were beginning to make inroads at the bargaining table in areas that were once considered ‘off limits’ by management. However, since Executive Order 12871 was revoked the gains that unions had made through the Clinton presidency have been slowly but surely slipping away under Bush.