Transition Period Seen

Administration officials say that at the outset, employees of agencies that would be absorbed into Homeland Security if it is created-potentially including the Coast Guard, Immigration and Naturalization Service, Customs Service, Transportation Security Agency and a dozen or more smaller agencies or sub-agencies-would continue under their current personnel rules for a transition period of perhaps a year or more. But after that transition, it would be largely up to the agency’s secretary, working in conjunction with the Office of Personnel Management director, to set personnel policies. The proposal would require only that the agency’s personnel system be “flexible, contemporary and grounded in the public employment principles of merit and fitness.” One aspect of special concern to federal unions would be the prospect that existing bargaining units might eventually be disbanded. That could deprive employees of their union protections and also cost the unions large numbers of members.