Home Media Center News Releases

Washington, D.C.—Despite two years of intense, good-faith efforts working with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) on crafting a new personnel system for DHS employees, and despite some positive changes in the final regulations, the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) finds that the final regulations still fall short of being acceptable to the union or the 15,000 employees NTEU represents, NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley said today.

Kelley said that while NTEU's tireless work in the mandated "meet and confer" process clearly resulted in positive changes to the final system, particularly in the area of adverse actions, the regulations, nonetheless, remain seriously flawed. The union leader was especially critical of detrimental changes to the labor relations aspects of the final system.

"These regulations, which will muffle the important voices of front-line employees, will irreparably impair the ability of DHS to retain the experienced employees it has today and recruit a top-notch workforce in the future," Kelley said.

“From the beginning of the process,” President Kelley said, “NTEU made clear to the department that the only way it can succeed in its mission is to develop a personnel system that is fair,

credible and transparent—and that provides meaningful opportunities for the voices of employees and their representatives to be heard.”

Instead, she said, “the final regulations fall far short of that goal.”

Specifically, Kelley attacked the regulations for eliminating a variety of existing employee rights and imposing severe limitations on collective bargaining, with the effect of stripping from DHS employees the right to representation over the same issues that other federal workers continue to have—including such key matters as assignments, reassignments, overtime and hours of work.

"We had hoped we could stand with DHS in supporting the regulations," President Kelley said, "but instead we must stand in opposition."

The NTEU leader recognized that DHS did accept some of the points NTEU advanced during the meet and confer process, including the restoration of third-party arbitration for adverse personnel actions and retention of the higher preponderance-of-the-evidence standard of proof.

“We’re pleased that the draft regulations were improved in these regards,” she said, “but so much more that was advanced by employees and their unions and that made sense for workers, for the department and for the nation was simply ignored or rejected by DHS.”

Kelley also took issue with the DHS decision to move ahead with a pay-for-performance plan, effectively abandoning over time the General Schedule. “They haven’t tested the system, employees don’t want it because they know such systems discourage teamwork, and DHS has no real idea how to do it,” she said. “Yet, they’re planning on moving ahead with it.”

She said NTEU will review every word of the regulations and will vigorously work to influence the implementation to the greatest extent possible.

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing 150,000 employees in 30 agencies and departments, including some 15,000 legacy Customs employees in the DHS Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP).