Feds seek union help for security
WASHINGTON (PAI) - President Bush's homeland security director, Thomas Ridge, has asked a group of union presidents for specific help from workers on security.

In a June 21 White House meeting, Ridge discussed transportation system safety and related issues with Teamsters President James Hoffa, Fire Fighters President Harold Schaitberger, Operating Engineers President Frank Hanley, and Seafarers President Michael Sacco, among others.

"We talked about the danger Americans are going through, how life has changed since" the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon "and how and what must be done for the safety of the country," Hanley told Press Associates.

The discussion covered a wide variety of safety issues, ranging from having truckers watch for suspicious freight shipments and activity to security at the nation's ports to evacuation of major buildings and stadiums, he added.

In return for help in homeland security, Hanley quoted Ridge as saying: "We absolutely want to work with organized labor" on the issue because, as Hanley put it: "We can deliver the bacon."

Hanley said Ridge promised "continuing meetings to coordinate" how unionists can help homeland security. But Ridge "did not come down with precise decisions on how to give better notice" to unionists about security threats to monitor, he added.

Hanley's Operating Engineers can help combat the impact of terrorist attacks, as they and their heavy equipment did after the World Trade Center collapsed. And stationary operating engineers - who serve in buildings and stadiums - r can plan preventive measures in security and evacuation.

Hoffa told Reuters News Service that 500,000 truckers covered by his union's contracts could be lookouts for suspicious activity on the nation's roads.

The truckers "can be the eyes and ears of the homeland security office," Hoffa added. He said they can use CB radios to report unusual activity and become part of "a basic domestic intelligence service."

Sacco offered to have his union help watch the nation's ports, news reports said. He declined to comment, but Hanley said the group discussed port security, though not money for it.

The GOP-run House Appropriations Committee, responding to concerns by committee Democrats, inserted millions of dollars last week in Bush's budget for port security. Bush had none.

Ridge also pushed Bush's legislation for creation of a new Department of Homeland Security. The union presidents backed it. The department could have 170,000-220,000 workers, virtually all transferred from other agencies.
But Bush proposes exempting the transferred workers from union coverage and civil service rules, in the name of national security. That concerns federal employee union leaders, who were not invited to the June 21 meeting.