Home Media Center News Releases

Washington, D.C.—An independent analysis of government survey data about the federal workplace shows that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has a seriously demoralized workforce which carries “significant implications for the department’s vital mission of protecting the nation,” said President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU).

The analysis, by the non-partisan Washington-based Center for American Progress, is based on the views of some 147,000 federal employees from a variety of agencies, including more than 10,000 DHS employees, in response to questions posed by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) in its Federal Human Capital Survey.

Among other serious issues, the Center cited as a critical factor in the department’s problems the continuing efforts by DHS to impose regressive personnel rules that would roll back employees’ collective bargaining, due process and appeal rights.

“Whatever one might think about the merits of these proposals in theory,” the Center said in its report, “it is painfully obvious that the enhanced administrative authorities that were granted to departmental administrators were handled poorly, not only to the detriment of DHS employees, but the public and in particular the taxpayers as well.”

NTEU, which represents about 14,000 DHS employees in its Bureau of Customs and Border Protection has been leading the fight against the new personnel system and is serving as lead counsel in a federal suit. That suit has resulted in an injunction prohibiting major portions of the new regulations from being implemented.

President Kelley called the Center’s conclusions “tragic for the agency, its employees and the nation—but not at all surprising.” She emphasized that NTEU has been warning DHS that its actions in moving forward with this personnel system was having a strong detrimental impact on employee morale. This in turn, Kelley has repeatedly told the department and Congress, inhibits the ability of DHS to attract and retain the skilled and talented people this country needs for homeland security.

The Center’s report underscores the ranking of DHS as 29th among 30 federal agencies in a previous analysis of the same survey data last month by the Partnership for Public Service and American University. The Center analyzed the OPM data using two methods that took a broad look at employee responses to questions concerning their workplace satisfaction in a variety of measures—including leadership, use of their talents, reward for creativity and innovation, fair handling of workplace disputes, and others.

President Kelley has called on DHS leaders to scrap the new personnel system—key parts of it have been declared illegal as a result of NTEU’s suit—and to work with NTEU to develop a system that is fair to employees and the department, and that better serves the nation.

NTEU is the largest independent federal employee union, representing 150,000 federal employees in 30 federal agencies and departments.