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Washington, D.C.—Federal employee pay cuts, agency budgets sharply reduced by sequestration, continuing attacks on their pensions and the value of their work all have combined to produce low morale at the Department of Homeland Security, the leader of the union representing thousands of frontline homeland security workers told a House committee today.

In testimony presented to the House Homeland Security Committee, President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) took serious issue with the idea that leadership vacancies at DHS and its key Customs and Border Protection (CBP) unit are the reason for continuing low morale within the department.

“I talk to frontline port security workers every day and this is what they tell me,” President Kelley said. “Congress’s actions, including cutting their agencies’ funding, eliminating jobs, freezing their pay and attacking their benefits are demoralizing them and making them question Congress’s commitment to their mission. This is the real morale killer—not just at DHS, but government-wide.”

The NTEU leader emphasized that “the federal workforce has endured three years of a pay freeze. Many employees have also suffered days of unpaid furloughs due to sequestration. Because there has been virtually no hiring, workloads are increasing dramatically. Some DHS employees were forced to stay home from their jobs, while many others were forced to work without getting paid on time—because of a shutdown that did not need to happen.”

While leadership vacancies may have some impact on those results,

Kelley emphasized that “certainly, the $114 billion contribution federal employees have made toward deficit reduction” through the pay freeze and pension contributions—along with the stress associated with constant threats of government shutdown and unpaid furloughs—“constitute the major factors contributing to low federal employee morale.”

She added that the new budget deal would cut another $6 billion in federal retirement benefits for new federal hires, increasing the federal employee contribution to $120 billion.

Federal employees are not the only ones who suffer under these circumstances, she said, pointing out that budget cuts at CBP have resulted in long wait times at airports and land border crossings. “Wait times at the border cost the U.S. economy jobs, output, wages and tax revenue,” she said.

Kelley reminded committee members of the results of an NTEU survey of its members just prior to the implementation of sequestration on March 1; in three days, more than 2,200 responded. Nearly four in five said their agencies are not replacing workers; 67 percent said there was a hiring freeze at their agencies and they lacked the resources to do their jobs properly; and 48 percent warned that critical work is not getting done.

“The federal employees I represent are frustrated, angry and scared, and their morale is indeed low,” Kelley said, “and they know another debt ceiling debate and the possibility of a government default is coming in February.”

NTEU is the nation’s largest independent federal union, representing 150,000 employees in 31 agencies and departments.