Labor group highlights candidates’ differences on federal employee issues
Views on bargaining rights for airport screeners and contracting show important distinctions between Obama and McCain, AFL-CIO political director says.
DENVER -- Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain may not be talking extensively about federal employee issues on the campaign trail, but the political director for the AFL-CIO said at the Democratic National Convention on Sunday that two issues that affect government workers show the differences between the presidential candidates.
Those issues are collective bargaining rights for Transportation Security Administration airport screeners and the outsourcing of government work, said Karen Ackerman, head of political operations for AFL-CIO.
Ackerman noted that presumptive Democratic nominee Obama voted in support of providing TSA screeners with collective bargaining rights as part of a 2007 bill (S. 4) to implement the remaining recommendations of the 9/11 commission.
Republican rival McCain voted against a measure granting bargaining rights in March 2007 and missed a later vote on the overall legislation.
The presumptive Republican nominee also has said since 2007 that he would use the upcoming federal retirement wave to shrink the size of the workforce and curb employee unions. Among his priorities are making firings easier and a more rigorous system for evaluating federal programs. Underperforming programs could lose their annual funding or be contracted out, McCain has said.
Fighting efforts to outsource work has been a major priority of federal employee unions. For example, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association has campaigned to have controllers' jobs defined as inherently governmental to prevent contracting advocated by organizations like the libertarian Cato Institute.
"I think we all believe that the race for president will be very, very close," Ackerman said. "Union voters will be more influential than ever before."
AFL-CIO unions voted to spend $53.4 million on a political campaign that aims to influence 510 federal- and state-level races and to turn out 13 million union voters on Election Day. The federal employee unions that are AFL-CIO members will run their own targeted campaigns as well. Those unions include NATCA, the American Federation of Government Employees, the National Federation of Federal Employees and the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers.
For full coverage of the Democratic National Convention, go to NationalJournal.com.