Spy agency busts union

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 Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, all of the agency's workers now have intelligence, investigative or security duties that collective bargaining rights could compromise. In a Jan. 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 NIMA is contracting out much of the work currently done by government employees. She 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 U.S. attorney in Florida were preparing to unionize. During the legislative battle to create the new Homeland Security Department, administration officials fought for-and won-the power to deny union rights to department's 170,000 employees, about 40,000 of whom are now represented by unions. Bush officials have said they will not use their power to bust unions at the new department, but union leaders are skeptical.

The law creating the new department gives Secretary Tom Ridge similar authority to that used by Clapper at NIMA to deny union rights. If employees' job duties change, then Ridge can invoke his power to eliminate collective bargaining rights.

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."