IS ICE JUST THE BEGINNING OF A SOLELY DHS FOCUSED UNION?
FLRA has approved AFGE’s request that it no longer be considered the exclusive representative of Immigration & Citizenship Enforcement (ICE) employees. From all we have heard and read, the ICE employees wanted to break away from AFGE (and the AFL-CIO with which it is affiliated) because those two organizations are not opposing illegal immigration strongly enough for ICE union leaders. Given that we know of other DHS employees represented by AFGE and other unions who have the same complaint about their own unions, we wonder whether ICE employees are merely the vanguard of a movement to form a union focused on fighting illegal immigration. We can think of four other bargaining units, representing more than 50,000 employees, that seem to think fighting illegal immigration should be a major goal for their national union.
In fact, there are several very good unions that only represent the employees of a single department or even a single agency, NLRBU, POPA, CREA, NATCA, PASS, NWESO, etc. They believe that being able to focus on a single homogenous group of employees makes them experts in those agencies and their employees’ problems. Just as importantly, it greatly minimizes conflicting interests between units such as can occur when unions represent employees across multiple agencies. AFGE and a number of its units clashed during the last two Presidential elections when AFGE endorsed one candidate and those units endorsed the other because of that candidate’s claimed deep opposition to illegal immigration.
There is little doubt that illegal immigration will remain a hot button political issue in this country for a while even though statistics show both parties have vigorously deported illegals. It is just too easy to divide Americans with a few sound bites and periodic news stories for it to fade away in this age of “divide America for the party” politics.
We wish ICE employees well given how vulnerable they are going to be until they elect a new union. We only hope that AFGE’s stunning move did not surprise the ICE Council given that it leaves ICE employees without a union for probably most of the next 12 months.
There’s a major point in this analysis that is misguided: ICE employees didn’t care about AFGE’s position on immigration enforcement, it was AFGE’s support for the “Abolish ICE” movement that left a sour taste in the mouth of the bargaining unit. What other union has fought to eliminate the jobs of their members?
And the actual trigger that initiated AFGE’s retaliation was the ICE union leadership calling for democracy and transparency at the recent convention/election after years of allegations of corruption and fraud at the highest levels of AFGE.
This was a disturbing series of events that should make every AFGE member look closely at their union. If AFGE will completely eliminate bargaining units in order to avoid revealing the truth behind corruption allegations, what else are they willing to do to employees?
AFGE is run by lawyers, not trade unionists! Unions don’t give up bargaining units of 7000+ employees because the members who are the frontline workers seeks something that is critical to them! That’s the problem with unions! Top down leadership telling the frontline workers what they should stand for! Labor has been losing because of that and will continue to lose! Attorneys didn’t bargain sick leave and annual leave, trade unionist did! Lawyers didn’t negotiate health and safety, trade unionists did! Lawyers didn’t negotiate job security and closed shops, trade unionists did! So did trade unionists decide to take these and other protections away from frontline workers? Of course not, but a lawyer would because they don’t have within them the love and fight for labor. They’re only looking at words on a paper and discard what’s important to the dues paying members. AFGE’s president is not a lawyer, he’s merely a puppet being controlled by lawyers with limited experience in labor relations! Think about it, giving away a bargaining unit of over 7000 employees and rendering a contract they’ve had for over 25 years, null and void! A trade unionists would not have done that!