Anti-terrorist measures introduced in the United States in the wake of 9/11 are now being used against US workers and their unions. Riding a wave of popular support for the "War Against Terrorism," the Bush administration has used its sweeping new powers to threaten the collective bargaining rights of federal government employees and West Coast longshoremen.

President Bush has proposed creating a new Homeland Security Department, which would combine elements of existing government agencies to protect Americans from future terrorist attacks. As part of this initiative, the administration insists that workers in the new agency should lose their right to union representation, and that the President should have the right to hire, fire, and punish these workers at will. In addition, the proposal would allow the hiring from outside the Department without regard for current Civil Service rules.

The American Federation of Government Employees has protested this attempt to sweep away the trade union rights of 160,000 government employees. In a letter to the New York Times, AFGE president Bobby L. Harnage Sr. said: "When President Bush threatens to veto any version of the bill that preserves workers’ rights and protections, he sends a signal of contempt for the workers and those they serve."

Harnage also pointed out that the elimination of union protection could open the new agency to political cronyism and corruption, noting that "…collective bargaining has made good on the promise of a competent work force unbowed before the political winds."

Opponents of the President’s plan note that eliminating collective bargaining rights would both please his anti-union supporters and provide an opportunity for numerous patronage appointments.

On the Pacific Coast, members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union are in a fight to protect union jobs. Even before the ILWU contract with the Pacific Maritime Association expired on July 1, the Bush administration had hinted that any job action taken by the union would be viewed as a threat to national security. Tom Ridge, head of George Bush’s Homeland Security Department, phoned the head of the ILWU to warn that a strike was inadvisable at this time, and that the government would intervene if the union took job action.

According to ILWU spokesman Steve Stallone, the pressure didn’t stop there. Stallone says that a representative of the US Labor Department told union negotiators that, if necessary, the government would run the ports using US Navy personnel as strikebreakers.

Standing behind the employer (the PMA) in this dispute is the West Coast Waterfront Coalition, a group of the largest shipping corporations in the US. Composed of corporate giants like Nike, Walmart, and The Gap, this group wants to see the ILWU’s power on the docks broken.

With the backing of corporate America and muscle of the Bush administration behind them, the employers are not in a mood to compromise: on the contrary – they are deliberately provoking a fight. On October 2nd, the union walked out of a conciliation meeting when employer representatives turned up accompanied by armed bodyguards.

On September 29th, the PMA locked out the longshoremen. Despite the fact that this closed down all the ports on the West Coast, the Bush administration didn’t treat the employers as a threat to national security – didn’t threaten the PMA with legal sanctions or send in the Navy. Instead, the government waited patiently until it became clear that the ILWU could hold out longer than the employer, then ordered an end to the work stoppage.

How this dispute will end is anybody’s guess. What is clear is that the government is prepared to intervene on behalf of the employers, and that so-called "national security" requirements can be used to justify strikebreaking.

The longshoremen, and the Federal Government employees facing the loss of union protection, are learning that when anti-terrorism measures infringe on human rights, labour rights aren’t exempt.