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Washington, D.C.—The National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) today filed a federal lawsuit asking the court to declare unlawful—and to prevent the implementation of—final personnel regulations which strip meaningful collective bargaining and other rights from all of the civilian employees of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

The suit was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, and alleges that the final regulations fly in the face of congressional intent expressed in the Homeland Security Act (HSA), which established the department.

The HSA requires that the department’s personnel system ensure that employees may bargain collectively. The final regulations, however, do just the opposite, removing from all DHS employees longstanding statutory rights to bargain collectively and participate, through their elected union representatives, in decisions affecting them, the suit alleges.

"The employees losing their basic rights are the same men and women who guard our borders every single day," said NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley. "There is absolutely no basis for stripping them of their rights while asking them to help keep America and our way of life intact."

The longstanding rights are being replaced with a “one-sided regime under which the majority of important conditions of employment are not subject to negotiation—even as to the impact and implementation of management-initiated changes” on such working conditions, Kelley added.

Moreover, the union leader said, this new regime provides management with “an unlimited unilateral right to issue agency-wide directives to take what few matters remain negotiable off the bargaining table and/or to invalidate provisions of existing collective bargaining agreements.” The regulations also strip from employees meaningful rights to third-party decision-making on key matters affecting their work lives and place that responsibility, instead, in a DHS-controlled internal labor relations board.

The final regulations are also invalid in that they purport to impose certain new duties and rules of operation on both the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) and Merit Systems Protections Board (MSPB)—both of which are independent agencies and beyond any jurisdiction granted DHS by the law creating it.

In addition, the final regulations purport to preclude arbitrators and the MSPB from mitigating penalties imposed on employees accused of misconduct, even when they are unreasonable ones, unless an employee demonstrates that they are “wholly without justification.” This change will make it virtually impossible for employees to secure relief even in cases where a grossly disproportionate penalty is imposed for a minor offense. The implementation of this grossly unfair new standard cannot be reconciled with the congressional directive that any departures from existing law be designed to further the fair, efficient and expeditious resolution of adverse action cases.

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing 150,000 employees in 30 agencies and departments, including more than 15,000 legacy Customs employees who are now part of the DHS Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

NTEU is joined in the suit against DHS and its secretary, Tom Ridge, along with the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and its director, Kay Coles James, by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the National Association of Agriculture Employees (NAAE), and the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE).

For a copy of the complaint, please contact NTEU.