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Washington, D.C.—In testimony submitted to key Senate and House committees examining the administration’s proposal to create a Department of Homeland Security, President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) strongly reiterated two fundamental points that in NTEU’s view must underlie successful efforts to increase the nation’s security.

First, the leader of the nation’s largest independent union of federal workers said, “the government must show the public that it is serious about protecting the borders by fully funding the agencies tasked with defending the borders and laws of the United States.”

And she urged Congress not to enact into law any provision that would strip rights and benefits from the very employees the nation is turning to in its search for more secure borders. NTEU represents nearly 12,000 employees of the Customs Service, one of the agencies the administration proposes to incorporate into the new Cabinet-level department.

President Kelley repeated her support for greater security at the borders. “The American public expects its borders to be properly defended,” she said in the testimony submitted to the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee and the House Government Reform Committee.

But that requires more than a reshuffling of government operations, President Kelley said. “No organizational structure change will be successful, no matter how good it may look on paper, if the government does not provide proper funding for its border security agencies.”

At the same time, she repeated the concerns she has expressed since the start of discussions about consolidating border security agencies and the potential adverse impact on the rights of federal employees.

President Kelley said the administration’s proposal would give the directors of homeland security and the federal Office of Personnel Management (OPM) wide-ranging authority to waive all civil service laws—including merit principles, whistleblower protection, the right to belong to a union, and pay and benefits with regard to any employee of a new Department of Homeland Security.

The NTEU leader said any such actions “would be a huge blow to the merit system that has produced the most corruption-free civil service in the world, and a huge blow to the employees who we are counting on to win the war against terrorism.”

She added: “Before, during and after September 11, front line employees have acted heroically to protect our freedom. They do not deserve to lose theirs.”

NTEU represents some 150,000 employees in 25 agencies and departments.