[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 123 (Wednesday, September 25, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1643-E1644]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   ARTICLE BY PROFESSOR DAVID YAMADA

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. JIM McDERMOTT

                             of washington

                    in the house of representatives

                      Tuesday, September 24, 2002

  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, as Congress grapples with how to best 
create a Department of Homeland Security that will meet our nation's 
security needs, I'd like to include in the Congressional Record 
comments that Professor David Yamada made regarding this issue. Mr. 
Yamada is a co-founder of the Workers' Rights Committee of Americans 
for Democratic Action and a professor of law at Suffolk University Law 
School in Boston. I share many of Mr. Yamada's concerns.

                      (By Professor David Yamada)

       In the hours and weeks that followed the September 11 
     attacks, thousands of unionized police officers and 
     firefighters representing the diversity of America secured 
     the damaged sites and sifted through the horrible 
     destruction. Few events in American history have more 
     strongly attested to the value of having dedicated public 
     employees on the front lines of our civil defense network.
       Nevertheless, the Bush Administration's proposed Homeland 
     Security legislation threatens to make second class citizens 
     of federal airport security workers who are hired to screen 
     passengers and to inspect packages and baggage. If Congress 
     approves the bill in its current form, newly hired airport 
     screening personnel could be denied all basic labor 
     protections. These include the rights to join a union, to 
     negotiate over wages and working conditions, to be free from 
     discrimination and harassment, and to be protected against 
     retaliation for whistle blowing.
       This very real possibility is rooted in a little-known 
     loophole in the recently enacted Aviation and Transportation 
     Security Act. The loophole allows the Department of 
     Transportation, ``notwithstanding any other provision of 
     law,'' to ``employ, appoint, discipline, terminate, and fix 
     the compensation, terms, and conditions of employment'' for 
     all federal airport screening personnel. Read literally, this 
     allows the DOT to fix summarily all terms of employment for 
     airport security workers, without regard to any existing 
     federal labor law protections.
       The recently proposed Homeland Security bill would transfer 
     the airport screening functions specified in the Aviation and 
     Transportation Security Act to the new Department of Homeland 
     Security. The bill further provides that the Secretary of 
     Homeland Security will be granted all powers previously 
     accorded to the federal agencies absorbed into the new 
     Department. This means that the Secretary will inherit the 
     same alarming carte blanche authority originally granted to 
     the DOT to unconditionally mandate all terms of employment 
     for airport security screeners.
       This short, seemingly insignificant provision carries huge 
     implications. First, it obviously means that thousands of new 
     federal employees could be denied their basic labor rights at 
     the whim of a single Cabinet member. In addition, it would 
     send an unprecedented message that fundamental worker 
     protections, by their very existence, are inconsistent with 
     the goal of national security. Indeed, if airport baggage 
     screeners can be required to give up these civil rights under 
     the guise of national security, can police officers, 
     firefighters, and even privately employed transportation 
     workers be far behind?
       Finally, stripping these employees of their labor 
     protections would defeat the goal of hiring a skilled and 
     motivated workforce for this important security function. 
     Recall that one of the original concerns in light of 
     September 11 was that, because airport screening workers were 
     so poorly paid, the security companies had trouble attracting 
     qualified personnel, and that many of these workers reported 
     for duty exhausted from working other jobs to pay their 
     bills. How many qualified, trustworthy individuals will apply 
     for and remain in a job in which giving up virtually all 
     basic legal protections is a condition of employment?
       Hard-won legal protections for workers should not be 
     sacrificed in the name of national security without valid, 
     convincing reasons for doing so. In this case, the manner in 
     which airport security workers have been put at risk of 
     losing their rights smacks of an insidious attempt to ``sneak 
     one through'' Congress, taking undue advantage of the 
     public's understandable fears about the safety of air travel. 
     Because the Aviation and Transportation Security Act already 
     spells out in detail the necessary skill levels and security 
     clearances for airport screeners, there is no principled 
     reason also to require a wholesale removal of their labor 
     safeguards.
       Consideration of the Homeland Security bill now provides 
     Congress with an opportunity to undo the hidden damage of the 
     Aviation and Transportation Security Act. In the aftermath of 
     September 11, President Bush stood in solidarity with police 
     officers

[[Page E1644]]

     and firefighters at Ground Zero. Against a background of 
     terrible tragedy, he symbolically affirmed the importance of 
     rank-and-file public workers in American society. Hopefully 
     the letter of the proposed Homeland Security law will be 
     amended to reflect the spirit of that vital gesture.

     

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