Personnel Issues a Battleground on Homeland Security Bill

Personnel issues, in particular union rights, have become a major issue in consideration of the plan to create a Homeland Security Department, with the House-passed measure (HR-5005) essentially backing the Bush administration’s requests for greater management control over policies including performance management, job classification, pay systems, adverse actions, appeals and certain elements of labor-management relations. The measure would allow the new agency’s secretary, working with the Office of Personnel Management, to set policies in those areas as they deem fit; administration officials have said there likely would be a transition period of about a year in which current policies would continue to apply to estimated 170,000 employees who would be affected. After that, however, personnel policies would be set by rule-making, subject to general requirements that would retain government-wide policies such as merit principles, whistleblower protections, prohibited personnel practices, anti-discrimination law and veterans preference.