Mundo Obrero Workers World
By Alex Bolchi and Sue Davis
March 29, 2018
The Betsy DeVos-led Department of Education canceled its contract with nearly 4,000 DOE workers on March 12. The American Federation of Government Employees Council 252 had voted down DOE’s proposed collective bargaining agreement on March 5.
The DOE’s deliberately misnamed March 12 “collective bargaining agreement” — which AFGE properly calls a “directive” — strips workers of “previously negotiated rights and protections” and enforces draconian takebacks. It also interferes with AFGE’s — and every U.S. union’s — legal right to defend workers by denying representational time on the job. AFGE shop stewards would have to represent members off the job. Expecting the union to function without representational time would be “like asking the fire department to operate without fire trucks or a firehose,” says AFGE.
Read the full article at the Mundo Obrero Workers World website here.