Via Bros. Judd:
Hundreds of federal employees are expected on Capitol Hill today to protest a new personnel plan for the Defense Department that union leaders say would strip unions of any meaningful role in protecting the workers’ rights and welfare. Members of the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal employee union, plan to visit key lawmakers this week and urge them to limit Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld’s plans to overhaul the department’s labor relations system. Rumsfeld won authority from Congress last year to rewrite personnel rules affecting nearly 750,000 civilian employees. He argued that managers needed more freedom to rearrange money, workers and weapons in the war on terrorism. Union leaders, who opposed the legislation last year, said yesterday that new labor relations "concepts" released in a 13-page memo last week by the DOD go too far.... |