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Washington, D.C.—The National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) “cannot and will not” support any provision that permits the president to strip federal employees of their union rights “by simply submitting a report to Congress,” said NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley.

As Senate Republicans began efforts to weaken homeland security legislation advanced by Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT), Kelley said a proposed Republican amendment would allow the president to justify stripping federal employees of their key civil service rights by providing a written declaration of necessity to Congress.

President Kelley said comparable language in House-passed homeland security legislation would allow the president “to ignore a set of sound criteria for union exclusion” and would have “a substantial adverse impact” on the ability of the Department of Homeland Security to protect the nation.

Language allowing such action by the president, which was included in the House homeland security bill by Rep. Christopher Shays (R-CT), has drawn sharp criticism from the NTEU leader. “The president could exercise this authority even if the employees in question were performing identical jobs and had been union members for decades,” she said. “Adding a congressional notification provision,” as is proposed by Senate Republicans, “does nothing to alter our strong opposition.”

President Kelley likened the Republican proposal for congressional notification to the circumstances surrounding federal pay. “We have learned the hard way that congressional notification is worthless,” said Kelley.

“The Shays provision is extremely similar to the escape clause presidents have used for more than a decade to deny federal employees the pay raises they are entitled to under the Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act (FEPCA),” she said.

In order to authorize a pay raise different than that called for by the formula set in the bipartisan FEPCA legislation, a president is required to provide a report to Congress stating that there is a national emergency or serious economic conditions that make the raise inappropriate.

“Even when our country was experiencing unprecedented periods of economic growth and budget surpluses, the president used this authority to bypass the FEPCA law—and Congress stood by and did nothing,” President Kelley said. The abuse of this process has created “enormous cynicism among federal employees,” she added.

NTEU and federal employees have “no reason to believe that Congress would act any differently with regard to a presidential declaration that union membership suddenly presented an adverse impact on homeland security,” the union leader said.

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing some 150,000 employees in 26 agencies and departments, including nearly 12,000 in the Customs Service. Customs is one of the agencies whose employees would be transferred to a new Department of Homeland Security.