Home Media Center News Releases

Washington, D.C.—President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) said she is in full agreement with the analysis of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) problems contained in a lengthy letter to DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff from Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS), Ranking Member of the House Homeland Security Committee, and Kendrick Meek (D-FL), Ranking Member of its Management, Integration and Oversight Subcommittee.

In addition to questioning once again the willingness of DHS to work with Congress, the two members of Congress told Chertoff they believe the agency’s “human capital system is in critical condition, possessing neither steady, seasoned leadership nor clearly defined goals.”

In agreeing with that assessment, the leader of the union representing thousands of frontline homeland security employees noted the two federal court victories—with NTEU as lead counsel—declaring key elements of DHS’s personnel system illegal, and the recent NTEU-supported moves by the House of Representatives to slash sharply DHS funding in fiscal 2007 for implementation of its so-called MaxHR pay and personnel system.

“It is now crystal clear to everyone that the personnel system has been in critical condition for some time, and should be scrapped,” said Kelley.

“As I have said repeatedly, I stand ready to meet with Secretary Chertoff and others at DHS to develop a workable system that will serve the department and the nation while protecting the rights and interests of employees,” she said.

The DHS system which is the focus of the NTEU-led court challenge would severely curtail employees’ collective bargaining, due process and appeal rights.

The NTEU leader took note of another vital matter raised in the Thompson-Meek letter—namely, a recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report raising serious questions about DHS’s ability to implement an impartial and fair employee evaluation system.

Without fair, transparent and credible personnel and pay systems, President Kelley said, the department has no real chance to win the trust of employees, and such trust, in turn, is critical to the success of the DHS mission.

Reps. Thompson and Meek asked Secretary Chertoff to respond by June 15 to several pointed questions, including the GAO report, the recent resignation of the department’s chief human capital officer—who appeared before the subcommittee after having submitted his resignation but before the matter became public—and its plans for dealing with the problems surrounding the MaxHR system.

“I’ll be very interested in those responses,” President Kelley said. “DHS needs to wake up to the serious morale issues among its employees and execute a plan to address those issues in positive ways.”

NTEU is the largest independent union, representing some 150,000 federal workers in 30 agencies and departments, including more than 14,000 in CBP—making it the largest union representing CBP employees.