After resisting union attempts to overturn a management
ban on cell phone and pagers in primary and secondary
inspection areas, the Bureau of Customs and Border
Protection will begin installing phones for employees
working in those areas to get incoming emergency calls,
the National Treasury Employees Union has announced.
It said its approach to the “emergency notification
system,” which CPB management feared could still be used
for criminal activity, won the approval of the Federal
ServicesImpasses Panel, part of the Federal Labor Relations
Authority.
The panel rejected CPB’s claim that the phone interfered
with its management right to determine internal security
practices, as well as its offer to relay emergency calls
to employees in those areas from its national law
enforcement communications center, instead finding the
idea for a dedicated phone to be a reasonable solution,
said the union.
