Catherwood LibraryILR School

Confirming the worst fears of labor leaders, workers? rights advocates and their Democratic allies, controversial Bush Labor Department Solicitor appointee Eugene Scalia last month filed a brief with a federal review board calling for the overturn of a $200,000 decision against the Justice Department for anti-whistle-blower retaliation. Opposed by Democrats in his nomination to solicitor because of his strongly anti-worker and anti-labor law positions (see WIT?s for May 19, 2002, and Oct. 3, 2001), Scalia wrote a twenty-nine-page argument that seeks to eliminate the protections afforded government workers who inform Congress of questionable workplace practices. This most recent move by the Bush administration to undermine new whistle-blower protections passed almost unanimously in the wake of the recent rash of corporate scandals (see WIT?s for July 30, and July 26, 2002), has met with the same bipartisan outrage as previous attempts to turn back the clock on corporate reform (see WIT for Aug. 7, 2002).