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Washington, D.C.—The leaders of unions representing tens of thousands of employees of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) today expressed their very great disappointment at the abrupt ending by DHS of the statutorily-established meet-and-confer period over proposed new personnel regulations for the department.

“There is much more important work that not only needs to be done but can be done, both on behalf of DHS employees and in support of the department’s critical mission,” said President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU).

In a joint letter to their members in DHS, President Kelley and American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) President John Gage said they intend to use every tool available to them, including congressional intervention, to secure and protect employee rights in the new human resources system at DHS.

The union presidents were particularly critical of DHS and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) for “walking away from” the assistance being provided to the parties by the director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS).

At the urging of the unions, the FMCS director had put together a package addressing 10 or so of the remaining key issues between the parties. “With a package deal in sight, management suddenly ‘walked out’, ending discussions,” they wrote to their members.

While the meet and confer period had produced agreement on some relatively minor points, and had led to oral agreements not yet reduced to writing on a few important points, there had been no agreement on most major points of contention—including management’s demand to sharply narrow the scope of bargaining; creation of a new, almost completely undesigned compensation system; and establishment of internal DHS boards that are redundant with existing, and independent, federal bodies to handle such key issues as employee appeals of disciplinary matters.

The union leaders pointed out that in approving the Homeland Security Act, Congress expressed its clear intent that the parties work together to bridge remaining disagreements after the issuance of draft regulations. “If we stop now,” the union presidents said, “we will fall short of meeting a congressional mandate that makes sense for the department, for employees and for the nation’s security.”

Separately, and as she has from the time of congressional approval of that Act, President Kelley emphasized the importance to both the agency and its employees of working cooperatively to develop a new human resource management system.

“A personnel management system that is perceived as fair, credible and transparent by DHS employees is critical to retaining the best workers and fostering a workplace where employees give their all,” she said. “Consultants aren’t going to get you there. That system can only be constructed by working together with employees and their representatives.”

A few weeks ago, NTEU was sharply critical of a DHS decision to award Northrup-Grumman Corp. a contract of up to $175 million to provide “the full range of services” needed to design and implement the core human resources systems.

NTEU likewise was critical of the DHS draft regulations, issued earlier this year, and since that time has been offering recommendations on a variety of key matters, including pay, performance appraisals, collective bargaining rights, appeals of disciplinary actions and more in an effort to improve the proposed system.

As the largest independent federal union, NTEU represents some 150,000 employees in 30 agencies and departments, including about 15,000 in DHS’s Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) who are legacy employees from the U.S. Customs Service.