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Washington, D.C.—It is shocking and discouraging, as well as a clear danger to the security of our nation, that its own employees have ranked the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) near the bottom in four major categories identified by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) from a recent government-wide employee survey, the leader of the union representing thousands of DHS employees said today.

While OPM did not provide rankings of troubled federal agencies, DHS itself informed its employees of its low rankings on the survey. “Sadly,” said NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley, “this is roughly the same position DHS found itself in two years ago when OPM last surveyed employees. There is a morale crisis in this department that is only getting worse.”

NTEU has been warning top DHS leadership for several years now that its actions have created and are sustaining a demoralized workforce and urging DHS to work with the union.

“I have told DHS leaders from the start that this department cannot succeed without listening to and respecting the voices of experienced, front-line employees,” Kelley said.

The low DHS ranking was generated by employee responses to questions identified by OPM as reflective of four indices: leadership and knowledge management; results-oriented performance culture; talent management; and job satisfaction. DHS was 36th in job satisfaction and results-oriented performance culture, it told its employees, as well as 35th on leadership and knowledge management and 33rd on talent management.

What may be the worst part of this “dismal showing,” President Kelley, said are the number of employees answering ‘disagree’ or ‘strongly disagree’ to key questions. For example:

· 43 percent of DHS employees said they have insufficient resources to do their jobs;

· 41 percent said they do not get enough information from management—a particularly important matter when it comes to protecting the nation;

· 47 percent said their leaders fail to generate high levels of motivation; and

· 43 percent disagreed that awards are based on how well employees do their jobs.

“Unfortunately,” President Kelley said, “these numbers represent little or no improvement from the 2004 survey.” That’s what happens, she said, when an agency seeks to impose on employees a regressive and unnecessary personnel system—as did DHS—forcing a federal court battle to protect workers’ collective bargaining, due process and appeal rights. NTEU led that successful lawsuit.

But it’s not just the personnel system, Kelley said. Among DHS units, the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has taken especially egregious actions that have caused employee morale to plummet. These include scrapping a joint awards process to implement a unilateral program that was later found by an arbitrator to be illegal—CBP not only appealed that decision, it used the same program the following year; efforts to force unneeded grooming standards on employees; unilateral changes in the bid and rotation system; and much more.

“Little of importance will improve, both in CBP and DHS,” President Kelley said, “until the leadership at every level understands and acts on the belief that employees are not the problem—that they are in fact the key part of the solution.”

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