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Officials at the Customs and Border Protection agency are continuing to award cash bonuses without employee input, despite a January arbitration ruling against this method.

In January, arbitrator Roger Kaplan found that CBP's decision to disband local awards committees composed of union and agency representatives in favor of a more streamlined, unilateral process violated the agency's contract with the National Treasury Employees Union.

CBP appealed the ruling to the Federal Labor Relations Authority and is awaiting a decision. In the meantime, CBP notified the union in July that it would continue to dole out superior achievement cash awards without the committees.

"Despite a very clear and strongly worded decision from an arbitrator that CBP violated its contract with NTEU, the agency is reverting to its previously discredited unilateral awards policy for 2006 awards," said Colleen Kelley, president of the union.

In a letter to NTEU, Sheila Brown, CBP's labor relations director, denied a grievance on the matter. She said it was duplicative of the union's earlier grievance, which led to Kaplan's decision. Brown said CBP was not changing its policy until it got word from the FLRA.

A CBP press officer said the agency would not be able to comment on the bonus policy in time for this story. In January, Kristi Clemens, who was the agency's assistant commissioner for public affairs but has since left, told Government Executive the awards process was unmanageable and needed to be streamlined. Three agencies, with three different unions, came together to form CBP, she said.

"This new streamlined awards policy, implemented in [fiscal] 2005, is a unified system providing employees with the right to nominate themselves, or other employees, for an award," Clemens said.

NTEU won an election in late June as the sole union to represent a large chunk of CBP employees, and continues to push for the committees.

"The previous system ... helped ensure that employee performance was rewarded based upon merit, not personal favoritism," Kelley said. "CBP decisions to remove front-line managers and employees from the award decision-making process and then to remove the transparency from the process is a huge mistake and another contributor to morale problems at the agency."

If Kaplan's ruling stands, Kelley said employees could receive "millions" in additional awards. No employees would lose money as a result of the ruling.

COMMENTS

• Here we go again fellows. Just remember to put on your knee pads and all will be well. If you don't like it, stay quiet or you'll be fired. With the way CBP is going, where almost a third of new recruits quit with in the first month of employment, are you surprised the cronies are back to their old tricks? Just getting worse Posted August 16, 2006 6:43 PM
• CBP does whatever it wants all the time no matter what. How about the dozens of hours of uncompensated overtime headquarters personnel are forced to perform? Stamp Monkey Posted August 16, 2006 2:43 PM
• Sounds like business as usual. Legacy Customs, whose upper management control most land ports of entry, were notorious for promoting the "Good ole Boy" club mentality in promotions, cash awards and bonuses, all of which were predicated on who you knew, and not sound management principals such as merit, competence and hard work. Nothing has changed. Legacy INS was also notorious in these areas as well, but having observed both sets of upper managers in this merger, Customs wins the award hands down for the most corrupt culture of the two legacy agencies. We see the same identical issues at ICE and I’m sure the only way it will change is through the courts or the union. Oh, that’s right, there are no bargaining unit rights in ICE! GovExec.com reader Posted August 17, 2006 9:42 AM