Bush Attack on Homeland Security Personnel System Illegal

by Donna Jablonski, Jun 28, 2006

The Bush administration’s attempt to upend personnel rules of the Department of Homeland Security—part of a broader attack on the personnel system that dictates pay and working conditions for federal workers—illegally interferes with workers’ collective bargaining rights, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that allowing the department to unilaterally break negotiated contracts is “plainly unlawful,” The Washington Post reports.

…the DHS plan, by limiting collective bargaining to employee-specific personnel matters, leaves most decisions on working conditions up to management only.

“In no sense can such a limited scope of bargaining be viewed as consistent with the Act’s mandate that DHS ‘ensure’ collective bargaining rights for its employees,” the court said.

We’ll have more soon on this huge victory for federal workers.

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