THE OUT CROWD

Tuesday, December 2, 2008 1:40 PM

Midnight Exec Order Limits Collective Bargaining Rights

By ALYSSA ROSENBERG, Government Executive

If you were keeping an eye out for late-breaking executive orders or rule-making by the Bush administration, take a look at this one.

It's a doozy, exempting parts of the departments of Energy, Homeland Security, Justice, Transportation and the Treasury from collective bargaining rules on the grounds that their "primary function [is] intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national security work. It is further determined that chapter 71 of title 5, United States Code, cannot be applied to these subdivisions in a manner consistent with national security requirements and considerations."

UPDATED Dec. 2 at 2:20 p.m: GovExec has followed up with a fuller report:

Federal employee unions reacted angrily to a Nov. 26 executive order that strips collective bargaining rights from thousands of employees at five departments.

"The Bush administration has spent the entire eight years in office attempting to destroy collective bargaining agreements in all sectors of the workforce, and unfortunately, federal labor unions have been the easiest target for them," said Matt Biggs, legislative director for the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers. "This is a vindictive and deplorable swipe at federal workers on the way out the door."

Complete story available here.

CORRECTION: The original version of this post misattributed Biggs' quote.