Uncertain Road Ahead for DHS Policies

It could be some time until the direction of personnel policies at DHS is settled, following the department’s decision to drop the labor-management portions of its alternative personnel system originally and still commonly known as MaxHR. In the wake of that decision, a federal court closed the books on a long-running union lawsuit against MaxHR that had resulted in a court injunction against those provisions. The end of the lawsuit in theory at least frees DHS to move ahead with revising certain other policies, since a ban on MaxHR or follow-up systems contained in the current fiscal year’s funding bill applies only while the litigation was still active. The labor provisions sought to restrict the scope of bargaining, enhance management’s powers in other ways, and create an in-house labor relations board to field union complaints.