Spy Agency Busts Union
Federal employees no longer entitled to union representation
by Brian Frielb
In the latest Bush administration move to rankle federal union
leaders, the head of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency on
Thursday eliminated collective bargaining rights for the agency's
employees, including more than 1,000 workers with union
representation.
Under the 1996 law creating NIMA, agency Director James Clapper has
the authority to eliminate collective bargaining rights for employees
whose job duties come to include intelligence and national security
work. Clapper said that after the September 11 terrorist attacks, all
of the agency's workers now have intelligence, investigative or
security duties that collective bargaining rights could compromise. In
a January 28 memorandum, Clapper informed agency employees that they
could no longer belong to unions.
NIMA is the Defense Department's map office. Congress formed the
agency in 1996 by consolidating the Defense Mapping Agency, the CIA's
National Photographic Interpretation Center and several other offices
involved in mapping and imagery work. Many workers from the Defense
Mapping Agency came to NIMA as union members. The American Federation
of Government Employees represented the workers.
AFGE spokeswoman Diane Witiak said Clapper's decision to bust the
union was related to outsourcing, not to intelligence matters. "NIMA
has been engaged in large-scale privatization over the last several
years, resulting in contractors working side-by-side with NIMA
employees," Witiak said. "Yet Clapper has now issued an order saying
federal employees are no longer entitled to union representation, but
it's OK for contractors to be unionized."
Clapper's action follows a Bush administration decision last month to
deny collective bargaining rights to the 60,000 employees of the new
Transportation Security Administration. In January 2002, the
administration revoked union rights for employees in several Justice
Department offices just as employees in the office of the US attorney
in Florida were preparing to unionize.
Witiak said Clapper used his authority inappropriately. "It's not that
the employees' jobs have changed or that NIMA's mission has changed,"
she said. "It's simply part of the Bush administration's overall plan
to bust federal sector unions and reward his political contributors."
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