Home Media Center News Releases

Washington, D.C.—The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has set April 6 for oral argument on an appeal of a district court decision blocking the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from implementing new anti-employee personnel regulations.

NTEU, the lead counsel in the lawsuit, has already prevailed twice in the case, first obtaining an injunction from the district court blocking the regulations from taking effect and then fending off the government’s efforts to have the district court narrow the scope of its initial ruling. Both decisions are on appeal.

The case will be heard by Senior Judge Harry T. Edwards and Circuit Judges A. Raymond Randolph and Thomas B. Griffith.

NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley expressed confidence that the union will continue to prevail in its effort to prevent implementation of personnel rules that would severely curtail the collective bargaining rights of DHS employees, as well as restrict their due process and appeal rights.

“These regulations are damaging not only for DHS employees,” the NTEU leader said, “but also for the nation and its security, not least of all because just the threat of their implementation is having a serious negative impact on the morale of the men and women charged with guarding our borders.”

Kelley repeatedly has called on DHS to abandon its effort to impose illegal and regressive regulations on its workforce and instead to meet with NTEU to work out a system that would give the

agency the operational flexibilities it claims to need while protecting the rights guaranteed employees by Congress. Thus far, the agency has refused to do so.

NTEU, which filed a cross-appeal concerning aspects of the district court’s ruling that did not fully adopt NTEU’s position, filed a comprehensive brief with the appeals court on January 23 arguing that the regulations go far beyond any authority granted DHS by Congress in the Homeland Security Act (HSA), which created the department.

Among other things, the union argued that wide-ranging management rights claimed by DHS in the new rules fly in the face of the clearly-stated congressional intent in the HSA that the regulations “ensure” that DHS employees have the right to bargain collectively.

The regulations, NTEU told the appeals court, would authorize DHS managers and supervisors to nullify collective bargaining agreements on a whim. They also would let DHS unilaterally take matters off the bargaining table; eliminate virtually all negotiations over daily working conditions; and assign to a new management-controlled body the responsibility for resolving bargaining disputes without the involvement of neutral third-parties.

The lower court, NTEU said, correctly ruled that the essence of good-faith collective bargaining is an enforceable contract once the parties reach agreement. The district court added that bargaining is an illusion if any resulting agreement is unenforceable, which is the effect of allowing one party to ignore negotiated terms. The government’s final brief on the appeal is due February 13. NTEU will then file its final brief on February 27.

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing 150,000 employees in 30 agencies and departments, including 14,000 in DHS’s Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP).