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BUSH'S HYPOCRISY

Bush's Hypocrisy

To the Editor:

The Chief concluded its Oct. 20 editorial, "Only in Bush's America," by saying of the National Labor Relations Board ruling that full-time charge nurses are supervisory employees and therefore ineligible for union representation, "It's one more example of how President Bush's policies and philosophy are harmful to American workers and their unions."

In September at the UN, President Bush opened his speech by praising The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Bush quoted from the declaration saying, "This document declares that, 'The equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom and justice and peace in the world.'''

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the U.N. in 1948. I'm sure President Bush has never read more than the preamble. But I have read the entire document. If you read the entire document, you'll find numerous articles that President Bush violates, but we'll just look at Article 23.

Articles 23 states:

(1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favorable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.

(2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.

(3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favorable remuneration insuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.

(4) Everyone has the right to form and join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

Like the nurses? Like the TSAs? Like other government employees that the Bush administration refuses to allow to have a union?

If Bush believes in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, why this concerted union-busting, union-denying campaign by Bush, his appointees, the Republican Party, and their Big Business friends?

My complaint is why no one ever calls them on this. I've never heard anyone from the AFL-CIO, the Teamsters, or any other union, big or small, label the President or others as the human rights violators that they are.

President Bush fancies himself as a champion of human rights in the Middle East and other places around the world, but not in his own country - not when it comes to unions!

Every press release the unions issue in response to the Bush administration's antilabor, anti-worker rulings and policies should stress the violation by the Bush administration of this fundamental human right of workers to form and join trade unions as guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

JOSEPH PASSARETTI, Bus Operator