June 2, 2008

Fighting For Your Rights

Dear CBP Employee:

Recently, NTEU sent you a communication outlining what your life would look like under management’s contract proposals. It was not a pretty picture.

Not only does management want to take away rights that have been in place for legacy CBP employees for years, it is also attempting to make permanent many of the unfair and unlawful practices CBP management has been engaged in with regard to bid and rotation, shifts, scheduling and overtime.

In fact, management’s proposed contract does not contain one single enforceable right for CBP employees.

If CBP’s plan is adopted: management would have sole discretion to involuntarily reassign employees from one port to another; low earners would have no right of first refusal of an overtime assignment; there would be no right to exchange ports with another employee; there would be no enforceable bid and rotation procedure; preclearance employees would have no right to return to a preferred location in the U.S.; AWS-eligible employees’ right to work compressed work schedules would be at management’s sole discretion and they would lose their right to earn credit hours; and telework would be eliminated.

Here are some of the actions NTEU is taking on your behalf: • NTEU is refusing to sign the illegal ground rules imposed by the FSIP; • NTEU will fight outrageous management proposals at the bargaining table; • NTEU is informing key members of Congress about the back-door efforts CBP is employing to diminish employee rights; • NTEU will speak with key media outlets, as appropriate, to inform them of the unfair treatment of the CBP workforce; • NTEU is exploring all legal avenues to fight these efforts; •NTEU alone will provide the truth to CBP employees about agency actions.

There is much at stake for CBP employees, a host of issues involving money, fair treatment, dignity and respect and work life balance. But there is also a great deal at stake for the agency.

CBP has an unprecedented opportunity here to use these contract negotiations to unify its workforce, to improve its relationship with its employee representative, to boost its employee morale scores and to make CBP an agency that attracts and retains the best professional workforce in the world. If CBP continues on its current track, both sides will ultimately lose because the opportunity to improve and advance the agency will have been squandered.

All this is against a backdrop of several years of horrific employee survey scores and an ever-increasing turnover rate in CBP that should alarm not only CBP management, but the American people.

Instead of taking advantage of the opportunity presented to meaningfully address employees’ concerns, CBP has attempted to manipulate the bargaining process to ensure that its anti-employee proposals will be imposed by the management-friendly Federal Service Impasses Panel (FSIP). NTEU is responding to CBP’s machinations with tactical moves of its own, including bargaining under protest, refusing to sign a ground rules agreement issued by the same FSIP, and requesting a “stay” of the Panel’s ground rules decision from the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA). We cannot allow management to succeed with its unfair program of takebacks and regressive personnel practices. We must have a level playing field and a fair, impartial process for resolving bargaining issues.

Essentially, CBP is attempting—through contract negotiations—to do what the Department of Homeland Security tried to do with its illegal personnel regulations—to sharply reduce employee rights—regulations that NTEU defeated three times in federal court.

Meanwhile, CBP employees are forced to wait and wonder:

• When will we get some sanity in shifts and bid-and-rotation?
• When will managers comply with the law by giving everyone two consecutive days off each week?
• When will we get reasonable personal appearance standards?
• When will managers begin reassigning employees for hardships and similar legitimate reasons?
• Why won’t management approve alternative work schedules?
• When will management permit non-inspection employees to telework?
• When will management institute an open and fair system of granting employees awards?

NTEU will continue to do everything possible to make CBP management do the right thing, and negotiate an appropriate agreement that gives employees enforceable rights, and that improves the working environment for CBP employees and the border security of our country. NTEU will continue to remind CBP of this unprecedented opportunity to improve morale, decrease turnover and unify and strengthen its workforce. These fights are never easy and often protracted, but NTEU is persistent and will be ever-vigilant to ensure that your rights are protected and that we are vigorously representing your interests. I will keep you informed as events unfold.

A number of NTEU chapter leaders will be representing us during this week of bargaining. The following chapter presidents are at the bargaining table:

Donna Hart, Chapter 136 (CBP Virginia)
Jose Lamboglia, Chapter 137 (CBP Miami)
Thomas O’Keefe, Chapter 138 (CBP Northern New York)
Laura Zayner, Chapter 172 (CBP Chicago)
Albert Daniel, Chapter 178 (CBP Eagle Pass)

NTEU will continue to update members on the bargaining process through e-mail communications and its web site for DHS employees, www.DHSunion.org.

Colleen M. Kelley
National President