Following a successful four-year effort by dozens of unions and supporters, members of the SIU Government Services Division are among the workers buoyed by the late-January signing of a Defense bill that includes provisions protecting their rights to union representation.The legislation signed by President Bush exempts blue-collar Defense Department employees from the National Security Personnel System (NSPS) and also calls for certain protections for workers who operate under the NSPS. CIVMARS and other blue-collar DOD workers will keep their collective bargaining rights as well as retain rights to appeal major disciplinary actions. The same holds true for privately employed civilian mariners sailing aboard U.S. Military Sealift Command and U.S. Maritime Administration vessels (though it wasn’t certain those mariners eventually would have ended up in the NSPS).
“There are not many wins in our history bigger than this one,” said John Gage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees.
The NSPS applies to approximately 110,000 Defense employees who aren’t covered by collective bargaining agreements.
U.S. Rep. Neil Aber-crombie noted, “After four years of lawsuits and back and forth federal court decisions, Congress has finally restored the basic rights of hard-working government employees to bargain collectively over the terms and conditions of their work, and to have in place an independent appeals process to handle disciplinary actions. The new law exempts blue-collar Defense employees from the NSPS, and ensures that employees who are in the NSPS and perform at satisfactory levels receive annual raises and locality adjustments and have an opportunity to earn performance-based raises and bonuses.
“This language in the 2008 National Defense Authori-zation Act, now Public Law 110-181, affirms the existence of the social contract between employer and employee; affirms the value and dignity of an honest day’s work; and affirms this nation’s core belief in fundamental justice. I am proud that I fought against the National Security Personnel System in 2003, and that I was part of the leadership of the House Armed Services Committee in 2007 that wrote the language to restore the rights of so many Americans.”
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