Bush Kills Corporate Crook Ban
The Bush administration repealed a federal responsible contractor rule that required scrutiny of the legal track records of companies seeking lucrative government contracts. The Dec. 27 repeal followed Bush’s April 2001 suspension of the rule. The rule made it clear that compliance with federal labor, consumer, tax, antitrust, workplace safety, environmental and civil rights laws is part of the test for being deemed a “responsible contractor."

The AFL-CIO has long said that lucrative, taxpayer-funded federal contracts should not go to corporate lawbreakers. In a statement, the AFL-CIO called the action an “outrage" and noted that a recent U.S. General Accounting Office study found that, in one year, 261 federal contractors that had racked up 5,121 violations of health and safety laws received $38 billion in federal contracts and another 80 firms that broke labor laws won $23 billion in taxpayer-financed projects.

On Jan. 2, a federal judge threw out Bush’s 2001 anti-worker executive order that required employers to post notices telling workers about their rights to avoid unionization and standard union dues obligations derived from collective bargaining agreements. The Bush order did not compel contractors to inform workers about their rights to join a union. U.S. District Court Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr. ruled that the Bush administration had no authority under the National Labor Relations Act to issue the measure and permanently enjoined the administration from enforcing it.

Safety Falls Out of DOL Agenda
The Department of Labor’s regulatory agenda for 2002 does not include any action on a new ergonomics regulation and withdraws or halts action on 16 pending Occupational Safety and Health Administration and 13 pending Mine Safety and Health Administration safety actions.

The agenda, released last month, outlines the department’s priorities and plans for the coming year. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said the agenda “shows a deliberative step backward by the Department of Labor and the Secretary on issues central to worker health and safety."

Last year, the Bush administration orchestrated the congressional action that overturned the nation’s first ergonomics standard designed to prevent work-related musculoskeletal injuries. Since that action, more than 1.25 million workers have suffered ergonomics-related injuries.

Bush to Close Women’s Bureau
The Bush administration announced last month that it intends to eliminate the Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau and shut its 10 regional offices. According to the bureau’s mission statement on its website, wwwdol.gov/dol/wb/welcome.html, one of its main duties is the “responsibility to advocate and inform women directly, and the public as well, of women’s work rights and employment issues." Bush’s action also eliminates the Women’s Bureau Equal Pay Program.

Last year, the administration shut down the White House Women’s Initiatives Office.

New Year, Old Dance
President Bush’s and congressional Republicans’ insistence on massive corporate tax breaks and their refusal to include needed health care assistance and adequate income help for working families scuttled any chance for an economic stimulus bill before Congress left for the holidays.

On Dec. 20, the House narrowly passed a Republican stimulus bill that would provide big corporate tax breaks but extend unemployment benefits for just some workers and give some laid-off workers a small tax credit to buy private health insurance but no immediate help to pay premiums for their families. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) called the House bill “wrong on all counts" and asked the Senate for unanimous consent to extend unemployment benefits for laid-off workers, but the move was blocked by Republican leader Trent Lott.

Many laid-off workers face the imminent end to their unemployment benefits in the coming weeks and months. “The reality that the Republican leadership in the House, Senate and White House would allow an economic stimulus bill to fail because of a family-friendly provision on health care for unemployed workers signals a disturbing oblivion about life for working people during a recession," said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney.

Panel Calls for Benefit Cuts
President Bush’s hand-picked Social Security privatization commission issued its final report Dec. 11, outlining three ways to privatize the nation’s retirement system, all of which would require benefit cuts for most future retirees. The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities and the Century Foundation said in a report: “All three plans would reduce traditional Social Security benefits," and “none of the three plans appears to restore long-term balance to Social Security."

The Economic Policy Institute said: “Depending on which of the three proposals is adopted, younger workers would see disproportionate benefit cuts, as would African Americans, women and lower-wage workers. The commission’s report shows clearly that the privatization idea is bankrupt."

According to some analyses, the commission’s findings would hasten the depletion of the Social Security Trust Fund, create huge non-Social Security deficits, raise the retirement age and cut benefits to people with disabilities.

“Social Security needs to be strengthened so retirees and workers can count on it in the future, not turned into risky individual stock market accounts," AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said.

China Officially Gets PNTR
Despite its record of human and workers’ rights abuses, China now has permanent normal trade relations with the United States. On Dec. 27, President Bush signed a proclamation granting the status. While working families and their allies mobilized for fair trade, “corporations and chambers of commerce outspent us by 10-to-1 and still barely produced enough votes" in Congress to pass PNTR last year, said IBT President James P. Hoffa. “We will continue to pound the White House doors to ensure that workers are heard."

Fast Deals Equal Fast Track
A flurry of last-minute political deals and promises pushed the Bush administration’s Fast Track trade scheme to a one-vote win in the House of Representatives Dec. 6.

“Today we saw the House leadership hit a historic low in bowing to their billion-dollar corporate backers. The Republican leaders and the Bush administration capped a year of punishment for working families with one last disgraceful vote before the end of the legislative session," AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said. “They began the year by rolling back hard-won worker protections. They continued their attacks with a shameful ‘worker relief’ package that not only fails to provide relief to unemployed workers or stimulate our sputtering economy but shamefully lavishes tax rebates on profitable corporations. Now they have elected to end the year with a flawed trade measure that will cost more working Americans their jobs."