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Washington, D.C.—A bipartisan group of House members today urged President Bush to reverse his decision in an executive order to effectively dissolve two locals unions at the Department of Justice (DOJ), a step supportive of the sharp criticism of the president’s action expressed earlier by the leader of the nation’s largest independent union of federal workers.

President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) said the letter from the members of the House of Representatives, including Reps. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and Constance Morella (R-MD), “spells out, in direct and unmistakable terms, why the president’s action is completely inappropriate.”

The House members expressed their “strong disagreement” and “displeasure” with the president’s order. “The American people, foremost among them unionized firefighters, police officers and other public workers, have rallied to your call to service,” they wrote. “But among the freedoms America stands for is freedom of association and the right to organize. To deny a group of American citizens—in this case, citizens in service to our government the pursuit of justice—such a fundamental human right is a serious action that should only be taken under the most extreme circumstances.”

In a January 7 executive order, Mr. Bush removed two groups of DOJ employees, both represented by local unions of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), from the representation provisions of the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act on the basis that their inclusion by labor organizations could infringe on national security duties. Kelley attacked that reasoning as seriously flawed.

In their letter, the House members said “we all agree that protecting national security is critically important. However, using national security as a guise ultimately cheapens the very thing we are fighting to protect.”

They also questioned the timing of the president’s announcement of his order, calling that “even more surprising” in that it was issued on the same day of a scheduled hearing in Miami by the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) on the appropriateness of a proposed collective bargaining unit for some 200 attorneys and accountants at the U.S. Attorney’s office in Miami.

“To an outside and objective observer,” the House members wrote, “this timing appears to be more than coincidental.” NTEU had been engaged in the organizing effort there.

Kelley emphasized the “suspect nature” of the president’s action to remove the employees from the law’s representational provisions since it was taken despite the fact that some of the affected workers had been union members at DOJ for some 20 years and work in clerical and other support jobs with no access to classified information nor with any national security responsibilities.

As the largest independent federal union, NTEU represents some 150,000 employees in 25 agencies and departments.