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Washington, D.C.—The Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has the duty to provide the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) the opportunity to bargain over certain local workplace changes, an arbitrator has ruled in an important victory for NTEU and the CBP employees it represents.

The case involves unilateral changes CBP made—in violation of both federal labor law and the NTEU-CBP contract—in a local agreement covering the periodic rotation of CBP officers among tours of duty and work shifts at the International Bridge in Presidio, Texas.

“In this important case, the arbitrator ordered not only bargaining at the national level over the rotation of officers,” said NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley, “he directed that impacted employees be made whole for lost earnings because of the agency’s illegal conduct.”

Prior to the unilateral change by CBP, officers represented by NTEU Chapter 143 (CBP El Paso) worked on a two-week rotational basis, with pay differentials for working both the swing and graveyard shifts. The change, which resulted from a reduction in the number of officers working from midnight to 8 a.m., led to the loss of shift differential earnings for those employees.

Arbitrator Thomas Angelo described the agency’s action in this case as “a garden variety unfair labor practice.” Since the agency wished to make a change in staffing levels, he said, a necessary outgrowth of that action was “the need to adjust the existing, negotiated rotational policy.” However, he added, “rather than give notice to NTEU, the agency opted to act unilaterally and produce its own version of a rotational policy.”

By way of a remedy, Angelo directed the agency to “make whole” all employees adversely impacted by its conduct, and to continue paying them “so long as the illegally implemented policy remains in effect”—meaning until CBP provides notice to NTEU, an opportunity to bargain and agreed-upon changes in the rotational policy take effect.

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing 150,000 employees in 30 agencies and departments, including 14,000 in CBP.