Senate Begins Homeland Security Bill Debate

The Senate is in the midst of what could be a several week-long effort to enact a measure to create a Homeland Security Department out of some two dozen agencies and sub-agencies, and already it is clear that as expected, employee rights-particularly union rights-will play an important role in the debate. Unlike the House-passed bill (HR-5005), which would grant the agency new flexibilities over hiring, promotion, assignment, firing and other key personnel policies, the measure under Senate consideration essentially would leave existing policies in place. And unlike the House bill, which would loosen the restrictions on denying employees union representation rights, the Senate measure would strengthen those restrictions somewhat.