By AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney
WASHINGTON, D.C. — On November 19, the Senate voted against stripping out of the Homeland Security bill special interest gifts to Republican campaign donors, arguing that removing those provisions would slow the government’s ability to create the new Department of Homeland Security.
This politically transparent argument was just the latest in a series of weak and utterly false claims made by the White House during this debate. For months the White House and Republican-led House diverted the truth by blaming the Senate for not completing the homeland security legislation. In reality, Democratic Senators proposed a Department of Homeland Security long before the Bush Administration recommended the agency. And it was the Bush Administration’s intractable belief that our nation’s security cannot be guaranteed if workers have rights on the job that delayed this agency for nearly six months.
The Bush Administration could have reached a bi-partisan compromise with the Senate to pass legislation that would strengthen our nation and guarantee that workers have a voice at work; however, the Administration chose to dedicate its resources instead to an all-out two-week campaign blitz by President Bush on behalf of Republicans to change the majority in the Senate.
The result is hardly legislation designed solely for security. This bill is characterized by campaign gifts to pharmaceutical companies and companies that exploit overseas tax havens, the approval of secret advisory committee meetings, reduced liabilities for companies doing business with the new department, and the end of collective bargaining rights for workers and the end of the right of workers to defend themselves against politically motivated hiring or firing.