Pickets in the Trenches

"Over the top, Soldier," shouts the U.S. Army lieutenant. "It's not my turn, Sir," protests the private. "I'm going to the grievance committee."

Around a scoffing Pentagon, that kind of dialogue is projected if new proposals to organize labor unions in the armed forces should ever be realized. Formally, the Defense Department proclaims in a policy statement that collective bargaining in the military inevitably would cause an "erosion of command authority." Informally, one Pentagon official vows: "We'd fight it to the death. There's no way you can have an army that way."

At least one union, the American Federation of Government Employees (an AFL-CIO affiliate with 300,000 members), is serious about the notion. Its rationale: since military pay is already linked by law and practice to the salaries of federal civilian employees, the two should combine their muscle to bargain together. The union insists that wartime discipline would not become a matter of union negotiations. Union officials note that countries such as West Germany, The Netherlands and Sweden have unionized soldiers and no break down of discipline has resulted. What's more, as one joke among the Government Employees union leaders has it, if soldiers won shorter hours at the bar gaining table, perhaps future wars would be shorter, too.

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