D.C. Cir.: Homeland Security Personnel Rules Violate Workers' Rights

A number of months ago, I wrote about a plan by the Department of Defense to revise its personnel policies in a way that would curtail its employees collective bargaining and other workplace rights.  Not only was that plan found to violate of federal workers' rights, but a separate judge of the District Court for District of Columbia had previously found a similar personnel policy dealing with the rights of Homeland Security Department workers equally violative. 

Now the D.C. Circuit Court has affirmed the ruling concerning the Department of Homeland Security personnel rules.  From the Washington Post:

A federal appeals court delivered another legal blow to the Bush administration's broad plan to overhaul the federal employee personnel system, ruling yesterday that the proposed changes would illegally limit the scope of collective bargaining.

The opinion by a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said new Department of Homeland Security personnel rules that deal with working conditions and employee appeals were illegal. The court upheld two rulings by a federal district judge that found the government had overstepped the authority given by Congress to rewrite personnel rules when it created the department in 2002.

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Yesterday's opinion, written by Judge Harry T. Edwards on behalf of a three-judge panel, agreed with [Judge] Collyer's findings on the DHS appeals process and on the proposed ability to unilaterally break negotiated contracts, which it called "plainly unlawful.''

But the appeals court went further, saying the DHS plan, by limiting collective bargaining to employee-specific personnel matters, leaves most decisions on working conditions up to management only.

Apparently, the unions that opposed these new personnel policies plan to meet with officials with the Department of Homeland Security to try to come up with a compromise solution.

Although there still may be an appeal of this decision to the Supreme Court, for the time being this is a significant victory for federal workers' collective bargaining rights.

PS