Lieberman pledges to fight for federal workers

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., vowed Tuesday in a speech before members of the National Treasury Employees Union to fight the Bush administration on behalf of federal workers. "Repeatedly, the Bush administration has failed to treat federal employees with respect and dignity and that has got to stop," Lieberman, a contender for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination, told several hundred NTEU members. "I'm going to be watching…this administration closely, and speaking out wherever and whenever its anti-union bias rears its ugly head."

The senator said he wouldn't hesitate to filibuster, or delay a vote indefinitely by speaking continuously on the Senate floor, to stop the administration [from stepping on employee rights] and protecting federal workers. "I know if the rules are fair and the playing ground is level, that public servants will perform at the highest level," Lieberman said.

The event was part of NTEU's annual legislative conference.

Congress gave administration officials broad authority to craft civil service rules when it created the new Homeland Security Department last November. The department merged 22 federal agencies and more than 170,000 federal employees. Now HSD officials are able to design new rules for hiring, pay, promotions, job classification, collective bargaining, performance appraisals, disciplinary procedures and firing, though the law also requires that any changes be made in consultation with employee organizations, labor unions and managers associations.

Lieberman, who is ranking member of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, led a coalition of lawmakers who opposed giving personnel flexibilities to department officials. NTEU President Colleen Kelley and leaders of other unions representing federal employees argued that reducing civil service protections would lead to politicization of the new Homeland Security Department.

"This administration partisanly and, I think, stubbornly, insisted on fighting over civil service issues," Lieberman said. "We were right on that debate and the administration was wrong. You'd think that some of my colleagues forgot that Osama bin Laden was the enemy and thought that Colleen Kelley was the enemy," Lieberman said, referring to the NTEU president and drawing applause from the audience.

During the height of that debate, President Bush said civil service flexibilities are necessary to move employees and resources around quickly. "The enemy moves quickly and America must move quickly," Bush said last November. "We cannot have bureaucratic rules preventing this president and future presidents from meeting the needs of the American people."

Lieberman said he would fight for military-civilian pay parity, called for more money to hire border patrol agents in fiscal 2004 and promised to oppose what he described as "efforts to wantonly contract out federal services en masse." The Bush administration has proposed a new competitive sourcing plan that could lead to the outsourcing of 425,000 federal jobs.

"When you work for the U.S. government, it is not just another job, it is an act of public service, you are fulfilling constitutional and regulatory responsibilities," Lieberman said. "You can't take those responsibilities and put them in a contract and say, 'Get it done as cheaply as you can.'"

In defense of the proposal, Office of Management and Budget officials have said repeatedly that agencies should be able to take advantage of "the best solutions at the best price."