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Washington, D.C.—In the wake of the planned Aug. 1 implementation of new personnel regulations by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), leading a coalition of five unions, today asked a federal court for a preliminary injunction to block the regulations from going into effect until their legality can be decided by the court.

NTEU filed the motion for an injunction with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The motion is the latest development in the unions’ lawsuit alleging that DHS regulations establishing a new personnel system for the Department fail to guarantee employees’ collective bargaining rights, as required by the Homeland Security Act (HSA). The unions previously filed a motion for summary judgment in the case asking the court to strike down the regulations as invalid.

“What NTEU wants,” NTEU National President Colleen M. Kelley said, “is for our questions about the legality of the regulations to be answered before the rules are implemented in six weeks. No one will be served, including the Department and the American public, by a federal agency, charged with protecting the security of our homeland, operating contrary to federal law.” Kelley said that requiring DHS to continue to operate under its current personnel system still allows DHS the flexibility to carry out its mission.

In a memorandum in support of their motion, the unions press their claim by arguing, among other things, that not only have they raised “serious legal questions” about the legality of the regulations, but there is a “substantial likelihood” they will prevail on the merits of the challenge since the new regulations far overstep any authority granted the Department by Congress in the Homeland Security Act (HSA).

NTEU further argues that DHS will suffer no harm from a delay in implementing the regulations pending the outcome of the court challenge, noting that the agency “has been operating” under existing federal sector labor law “ever since its creation, and continues to do so, even six months after it promulgated the final regulations.” The unions merely “seek a continuation of the status quo while the court addresses the merits of their legal challenge.”

DHS employees and their unions, on the other hand, will suffer “a series of immediate and irreparable injuries,” including injury to workplace rights which clearly are not compensable by money damages awarded after the fact, the unions said.

For example, the unions told the court, multiple provisions that typically appear in federal sector collective bargaining agreements would be unenforceable under the new regulations. These include provisions governing the assignment of overtime—with a resulting serious adverse impact on family life; those governing the assignment of work; those affecting bargaining over the impact and implementation of management decisions; and provisions governing the mitigation of penalties, among others.

“Injuries…like these, which affect the bargaining process itself” have been declared sufficient in other cases to warrant issuance of a preliminary injunction, the unions said.

To read the request for preliminary injunction, visit http://dhs.nteu.org/.

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing some 150,000 employees in 30 agencies and departments, including some 14,000 in DHS.