An arbitrator has ruled that the Bureau of Customs and Border
Protection must give the National Treasury Employees Union
the opportunity to bargain over certain local workplace
changes, according to the union.
It said CBP violated its contract with NTEU and federal labor
law when it changed officers’ shifts at the International
Bridge in Presidio, Texas, in order to limit the number of
officers working the graveyard shift, resulting in the loss
of shift-differential earnings for some officers.
Before the change, officers worked on a two-week rotational
basis with pay differentials for working both the swing and
graveyards shifts, said the union, which represents about
14,000 CBP employees.
“In this important case, the arbitrator ordered not only
bargaining at the national level over the rotation of
officers,” said NTEU president Colleen M. Kelley, continuing,
“he directed that impacted employees be made whole for lost
earnings because of the agency’s illegal conduct.”
According to the union, the arbitrator said the agency had
acted “unilaterally” to “produce its own version of rotational
policy,” when it should have attempted to adjust the “existing,
negotiated rotational policy.”
The agency was ordered to “make whole” impacted employees and
continue paying them while the new policy remains in effect.
