Home Media Center News Releases

Washington, D.C.—The leader of the union representing thousands of frontline border security workers and employees critical to the flow of the nation’s international trade today called on the Senate to approve legislation that would increase staffing and training in these positions and take a major step toward a much-needed return to workplace specialization as a boost to the nation’s security.

“The Port Security Improvement Act of 2006 addresses in meaningful ways a number of serious issues impacting both the security of our borders and the flow of trade, and I hope the Senate moves promptly to enact it,” said President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU).

Debate on the measure (S. 4954) is expected to continue through next week. The House already has approved a seaport security bill, H.R. 4954.

President Kelley applauded the bipartisan work on the Senate measure by leaders of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee; the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee; and the Finance Committee. NTEU worked closely with members of all three bodies on the legislation to ensure the concerns of employees of the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) were addressed.

The bill authorizes the hiring of at least another 725 CBP Officers (CBPOs) and seeks to improve existing programs for targeting and inspecting containers entering U.S. seaports, in part by recognizing the importance of adequate training for them to perform the distinct scanning, screening and search tasks.

This is in sharp contrast to the continuing effort by CBP to reduce specialization at the nation’s ports of entry through its ‘One Face at the Border’ program. The result has been a serious loss of inspectional expertise at U.S. ports.

The Senate proposal also calls for the hiring of at least 50 additional employees each year for the next three fiscal years to perform the work of validating the security plans in place for shippers of U.S.-bound cargo under what is known as the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT). CBP has come under intense criticism for its efforts to contract out to third parties the validation work.

Importantly, the legislation contains language that would require CBP to complete a resource allocation model by next June—and every two years thereafter—to determine the optimal staffing for its commercial and revenue-generating functions; CBP is notoriously lax in maintaining a current staffing model.

Finally, President Kelley said, the Senate bill would establish a new Office of International Trade within CBP, to be headed by an assistant commissioner. The present Office of Strategic Trade and Office of Regulations and Rulings would be transferred to this new office; the CBP commissioner would have the right under the Senate proposal to transfer other trade functions to the new office as well.

“This step would provide the trade function with the attention it merits, given the vital roles its employees play in our nation’s economic health,” the NTEU leader said.

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing some 150,000 federal workers in 30 agencies and departments, including some 15,000 in CBP.