Bush seeks employee support for homeland security reorganization

President Bush Wednesday asked federal employees for their patience and support while the government creates a Homeland Security Department, but did not directly address concerns about workers' rights or pay.

During a speech before nearly 3,000 federal employees at Constitution Hall in Washington, Bush thanked the group for their service before and after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and asked for their support while plans for the Homeland Security Department continued to take shape.

"I call upon your continued sense of duty to our country as we develop new plans," Bush said. "All parts of our government units continue to cooperate, and you all have cooperated and I want to thank you for working together in a fragmented government."

Bush said the current federal structure of homeland security agencies does not lend itself to accountability, and is not the best way to focus the government's activities or resources. Homeland security is better accomplished by uniting agencies under one department, he said.

Although the president called on Congress to give the administration the flexibility he says it needs to create a new department, he did not directly address concerns raised about the rights of 170,000 federal employees that would be shifted into the Homeland Security Department. The president wants flexibility in hiring and acquisition practices at the new department, and has asked Congress to give the new secretary of Homeland Security the power to do away with the current pay structure, labor-management rules and performance appraisal system.

"Congress must give us the flexibility needed to make it happen. I call it the freedom to manage," Bush told the audience. "We need to get the right people in the right place at the right time."

Before Bush took the podium, Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge spoke briefly, saying that federal employees would retain whistleblower protections, collective bargaining rights and other current pay and benefits packages if they are shifted into the proposed Homeland Security Department. Ridge also stressed that the new department would apply merit systems principles when hiring and promoting employees.

Many federal employees in the crowd came from agencies affected by the administration's proposal to fold seven agencies into a Homeland Security Department. Affected agencies include the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Coast Guard, Transportation Security Administration, Customs Service, Immigration and Naturalization Service (including the Border Patrol), Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service and Secret Service.

After the speeches, Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., said he was confident Congress would reach some compromise on legislation creating the new department that is now being debated on Capitol Hill.

But nothing Bush or Ridge said won over union officials, who said neither man adequately addressed or advanced the discussion about the need to maintain civil service protections in the new agency.

"Every federal employee is concerned with national security," National Treasury Employee Union President Colleen Kelley said in a statement released after the event. "That the issue of their rights, including their collective bargaining rights, needs to be under discussion is a disgrace. There's no question about the dedication and ability of unionized federal workers to do the jobs the public has the right to expect of them. These unionized employees prove their worth to the nation every single day."

NTEU represents 12,000 Customs Service employees, who are among those slated to be transferred to the new department.

"We just think it's very important that federal employees have full federal employee protections under the law," said Diane Witiak, spokeswoman for the American Federation of Government Employees. "Americans are best protected by federal employees who have protections."

AFGE represents employees at the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service in the Agriculture Department and several other units that would be rolled into the new department.

Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said he appreciated the president's recognition of federal employees, but criticized his speech for being "long on rhetoric and short on specifics."

"He offered no real explanation on how his proposal would provide flexibility in the new department while also protecting the rights and benefits of federal employees," Hoyer said.