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Washington, D.C.—Given the anti-union and anti-worker actions of this administration since its first days in office, the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) has “no confidence whatsoever” in promises by Bush administration officials that they will respect the civil service rights of federal employees placed in a new Department of Homeland Security, NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley said today.

Notwithstanding presidential pep rallies, Kelley said, referring to the president’s speech to federal employees in Washington today, “this is truly a case where actions speak much louder than words.” NTEU represents 12,000 Customs Service employees, who are among those projected to make up the new department.

“Every federal employee is concerned with national security,” the NTEU leader said. “That the issue of their rights, including their collective bargaining rights, needs to be under discussion is a disgrace. There’s no question about the dedication and ability of unionized federal workers to do the jobs the public has the right to expect of them. These unionized employees prove their worth to the nation every single day.”

President Kelley pointed to a variety of actions by the Bush administration that overshadow their professed commitment to worker rights. These include the rescission, just weeks into its term, of the executive order that created labor-management partnerships in the federal workplace.

“Partnerships provided the best forum yet for labor and management to work together,” Kelley said. “They were a particularly effective way for employee voices to be heard on issues affecting the performance of their agencies. Everyone saw partnerships operating well; yet, this administration saw fit to end this useful forum.”

That was followed, she said, by repeal of the workplace ergonomics standard designed, after 10 years of study, to cut down on workplace injuries; an executive order that stripped, in the name of national security, union rights from some 500 employees of the Department of Justice—virtually all of whom had been in unions for some years; a proposal for a meager 2.6 pay raise for federal civilian workers in 2003, as opposed to 4.6 percent for members of the military; and the refusal, thus far, to extend full civil service rights to airport security screeners.

“Given the administration’s record on these matters so far,” President Kelley said, “I don’t see how anyone can realistically put any stock in its promises that employees of the Homeland Security Department will retain the rights they fought so hard to win over the years, and which they truly deserve. I certainly don’t.”

The NTEU leader added that “it might have sent a more convincing message if representatives of the federal unions had been invited” to the event at Washington’s Constitution Hall.

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing some 150,000 employees in 25 agencies and departments.