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Long Beach, CA?Resources for front?line employees of the Customs Service are falling far short of what is needed to keep up with "dramatic increases" in trade volume, drug?smuggling and public travel, and that puts at serious risk the ability of this vital government agency to do its job, the leader of the union representing Customs employees said today.

President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), which represents some 13,000 Customs employees nationwide, urged Congress to appropriate more funding to increase staffing levels in Customs.

"It is time to hear the voices of the men and women tasked with defending our borders and to provide them the resources they need to do their jobs," Kelley told a Long Beach hearing of the House Subcommittee on Government Management, Information and Technology of the Committee on Government Reform.

A day earlier, Kelley had toured the Customs facility at Terminal Island, where the agency and the government's General Services Administration (GSA) have been under fire from NTEU for failing to move promptly enough to relocate the work force in the face of safety and health hazards.

Kelley was accompanied to today's hearing by leaders of the four NTEU chapters that represent Customs employees at the Los Angeles/Long Beach Seaport (NTEU Chapter 103), Los Angeles International Airport (Chapter 111), San Diego Port of Entry (Chapter 105) and Calexico Port of Entry (Chapter 123). These are among the busiest ports of entry in the United States, and staffing levels are totally inadequate, she said.

As an example, she pointed to the Port of Los Angeles/Long Beach, the third?busiest port in the world for handling containerized cargo. Over 6,000 containers arrive there daily?37 percent of the total unloaded in the United States?yet Customs' current staffing plan allows for only 30 containers a day to be examined, she said.

"Staffing our nation's seaports with adequate Customs personnel has not been a priority," Kelley said, "and, therefore, many areas of security, safety and efficiency are at risk," noting that NTEU?represented Customs inspectors are responsible, among other duties, for both inbound and outbound trade operations, anti?smuggling, drug?interdiction and passenger processing.

Kelley said that import specialists, also represented by NTEU, are trained to detect violations of trade and tariff laws that affect the economic viability of the country, including complex matters dealing with anti?dumping laws. Yet, she said, "inadequate staffing levels continue to undercut their ability to effectively and efficiently perform their jobs."

The NTEU president also emphasized the impact on employees' family lives, along with the damage to their morale and productivity, of working as much as eight hours of overtime each work shift with relatively few days off or time to spend with their families. She brought with her letters from five Customs Inspectors assigned to the land border crossing at Calexico, California, describing morale there "as the lowest it has been in decades."

Kelley added that "the constant strain of performing dangerous, life?threatening work" on irregular, exhaustive and unpredictable schedules, along with inadequate staffing, has brought the resource allocation situation "to the breaking point."