Please find below an example of UPI's continuing coverage of the Department of Homeland Security. A shorter version appeared on A9 of Monday's Washington Times. I hope you find it interesting. You may link to the full-length version on the web here:
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20050814-082700-6399r If you have any comments or questions about this piece, need any more information about UPI products and services, or want to stop receiving these alerts, please get in touch. Thank you, Shaun Waterman UPI Homeland and National Security Editor E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel: 202 898 8081 Unions block DHS labor rules, say Pentagon is next By Shaun Waterman UPI Homeland and National Security Editor WASHINGTON, Aug. 14 (UPI) -- The decision of a federal judge to block implementation of a new human resources system at the Department of Homeland Security could hamstring efforts to reform personnel regulations at the Pentagon and other government departments. Judge Rosemary M. Collyer of the District Court for Washington, D.C. Friday blocked implementation of new rules governing employee-management relations at the huge new department, which with 180,000 employees is the second-largest agency of the federal government. Collyer ruled that "significant aspects" of the new regulations, published Feb. 1 after lengthy but ultimately stalemated consultation with labor unions, "fail to conform to the express dictates of the Homeland Security Act" of 2002 -- the law that set the department up. Five labor unions representing 60,000 of the department's employees sued to stop the new rules being implemented, saying they illegally restricted the role of collective bargaining and labor unions, and unfairly deprived employees of due process in disciplinary matters. In her ruling, Collyer found that "The new human resources system has failed at one of its basic requirements: It does not ensure collective bargaining rights" for the department's employees, which the Homeland Security Act had specifically required it should. "This ruling is a clear message to the administration," Charles Showalter, president of the National Homeland Security Council told United Press International Sunday. "They must deal with the unions and they must respect collective bargaining." The National Homeland Security Council is part of the American Federation of Government Employees, one of the five unions bringing the case. Mark Roth, general counsel for the federation, told UPI that the National Security Personnel System currently being developed for the Department of Defense shared many of the characteristics of the new rules at Homeland Security. Roth said the unions were suing to block the implementation of the Defense Department rules on similar grounds, and that Friday's judgment ought to necessitate a rethink at the Pentagon too. "This ruling will have a direct impact on our case" against the Pentagon, he said. The National Security Personnel System was mandated by the 2004 National Defense Authorization Act. Passed in November 2003, the law gave Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld the authority to establish a new human resources management system for civilian employees at the Pentagon. According to the Pentagon, the system "will create a new framework of rules, regulations, and processes -- rooted in the principles of flexibility and fairness -- that govern the way civilians are hired, compensated, promoted, and disciplined" in the department. Roth said that the 2003 statute has even stronger protections for union rights and collective bargaining than the Homeland Security Act. The victory in the homeland security case was "huge but not total," he said. "We have an even stronger case" on the Defense Department system. But he added that he would not be surprised if the administration tried to force the new rules through anyway. "The Defense Department management and the Office of Personnel Management has been incredibly arrogant about this," he said, adding that they adopted a "rigid position" which had made it "difficult for the people we were talking to (at the Defense Department) to meet us halfway" during talks about the new rules. The final version of the rules is currently set for publication sometime in mid-September, Roth said, but added that with Friday's ruling "all bets could be off." No one at the Defense Department could be reached for comment Sunday, but a Homeland Security statement said they were studying the ruling. "The department is evaluating the impact of the recent court ruling on the labor and employee relations provisions of the (new) regulations and will consider next steps," said the statement, adding the rules "establish a flexible and contemporary system and their implementation remains a top priority for the Department of Homeland Security." The issue of labor relations in the new department was perhaps the most controversial aspect of the congressional debate over its establishment. Republicans accused some Democrats of holding the department hostage to the demands of the labor unions, and one of the fiercest proponents of collective bargaining, Sen. Max Cleland, D-Ga., was narrowly defeated at a subsequent election after opponents ran TV adverts accusing him of trying to damage homeland security, and comparing him to Osama bin Laden. Congress eventually gave wide latitude to the department -- working with the Office of Personnel Management -- to develop a new personnel system, free from the restrictions of the laws which govern employee-management relations for the rest of the civil service. The 2002 law, Collyers' ruling said, enshrined three principles which should guide the development of this new system: "That it be flexible, contemporary, and... 'ensure that employees may organize, bargain collectively, and participate through labor organizations of their own choosing in decisions which affect them.'" But the new regulations, she wrote, gave a greater emphasis to flexibility than to maintaining collective bargaining, because they "would allow (department management) to reject any term of a collective bargaining agreement negotiated under the new system if a subsequent ... policy or regulation were deemed inconsistent (with it)." "It's like the contract is written in disappearing ink," said Roth of the way the new rules allow management to void any provisions incompatible with departmental directives. Collyers pointed out that, though the parties "disagree on the necessary attributes of collective bargaining" there is "at least one irreducible minimum that is missing from the (new) human resources system: a binding contract." "When good-faith bargaining leads to a contract that one side can disavow without remedy, the right to engage in collective bargaining ... is illusory," she wrote. She added that the new rules also unacceptably reduced the role of the government's main labor regulator, the Federal Labor Relations Authority, and of a federal whistleblower protection watchdog, the Merit Systems Protection Board. "Because the human resources system elevates flexibility above the equal statutory requirement that it ensure collective bargaining rights, and because (it) improperly interferes with the Federal Labor Relations Authority and the Merit Systems Protection Board, the Court will enjoin its implementation," Collyers concluded. Robert Shriver, assistant counsel for the National Treasury Employees Union -- another one of the unions that sued over the regulations -- said that the elements of Collyers ruling which related to the Federal Labor Relations Authority might also be relevant in the case over the Defense Department rules. That part of the ruling was "derived from general principles of administrative law," he told UPI. Homeland Security management was "Trying to direct (the authority) to play role a in its new system different from and contrary to its role as laid down by Congress" when it was created. "They basically tried to make it a court of appeal (for disciplinary matters) which would rule under a standard that was very deferential to management," he said. Collyers found that this was unlawful. "The Court is convinced that (the Department of Homeland Security) cannot commandeer the resources of an independent agency and thereby fundamentally transform its functions, absent a clearer indication of congressional intent." Copyright (c) 2001-2005 United Press International ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> <font face=arial size=-1><a href="http://us.ard.yahoo.com/SIG=12hbcgnaa/M=362329.6886306.7839369.3040540/D=groups/S=1705323667:TM/Y=YAHOO/EXP=1124150442/A=2894321/R=0/SIG=11dvsfulr/*http://youthnoise.com/page.php?page_id=1992 ">Fair play? Video games influencing politics. Click and talk back!</a>.</font> --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? 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