NTEU claims victory in large DHS union election

The National Treasury Employees Union won the largest ever federal-sector union election Wednesday, winning representation of about 20,000 Homeland Security Department employees.

But its competitor, the American Federation of Government Employees, is filing a dispute with the Federal Labor Relations Authority claiming that management skewed the election toward NTEU.

Of the roughly 21,000 employees in the DHS' Customs and Border Protection agency mailed ballots, 7,369 voted for NTEU, 3,426 supported AFGE and 211 voted for the choice of neither. About 10,000 eligible voters did not cast a ballot.

The result comes a day after NTEU, AFGE and three other unions won a major legal victory over DHS' attempts to considerably curb union power in the department as a whole. If NTEU had lost this election, it would have represented only a marginal number of DHS employees.

"We're having a heck of a week here," NTEU President Colleen Kelley said. "I'm trying to figure out what could happen tomorrow to keep us on a roll."

The election was initiated by the agency itself. Officials said they want to promote unity among employees, who were folded into CBP from a number of no longer existing agencies when the Homeland Security Department was created.

Kelley said if the dispute is resolved and NTEU is certified as the sole representative, her union would like to begin negotiations to bring all CBP employees under one contract, provided management requests that change. Until then, employees will continue to be covered by existing contracts.

"If I've heard it once, I've heard it 25 times," Kelley said. CBP management wants "one contract and one set of rules."

Currently, NTEU represents about 12,000 CBP employees and AFGE represents about 6,000. About 2,000 former Agriculture Department inspectors are represented by the National Association of Agriculture Employees, which was not a choice in this election.

AFGE National Organizer Peter Winch said CBP officials purposely canceled AFGE's program for Los Angeles employees to work under the alternate work schedule on the day AFGE began campaigning in the city. Winch said management also personally denied him access to the Indiana Finance Center, where many CBP budget employees work, among a long list of other acts of alleged favoritism toward NTEU.

"CBP is controlled by Customs managers up and down the line," Winch said. "They prefer the customs union that they're used to working with, the one that has signed off on their policies."

A spokeswoman for CBP said the agency would not be able to comment by press time.

Kelley said she would call AFGE President John Gage Wednesday evening to discuss the election results.

The NTEU president said if the election is certified she will need to add staff to a number of NTEU field offices to accommodate the influx of new members. NTEU represents about 150,000 federal employees, the bulk of whom are in the Internal Revenue Service.

Asked the amount of revenue the victory would bring in for the union, Kelley said she did not know. National dues for NTEU are around $250 annually.

"I have not even thought about that, put a pen to paper, a calculator, nothing," Kelley said. "That's not what this is about. I truly don't know."