NTEU Protests Border Patrol Staff Shortages

By ARI PAUL

The union leader representing border patrol agents told a Congressional committee Jan. 3 that the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection must add hundreds of officers to its El Paso location and add thousands nationwide.

COLLEEN M. KELLEY: Attrition taking toll.

National Treasury Employees Union President Colleen M. Kelley, who represents 20,000 CBP workers, told the House Homeland Security Committee, which assembled in the Texas border town, that staff shortages have forced down morale among employees and adversely affected citizens trying to cross the border.

'Lines Tell the Story'

"I do not have to tell the people of El Paso that there are severe staffing shortages at our border crossings," she testified. "They live with the long lines."

The NTEU leader took particular issue with the El Paso facility's tendency to give officers varying shifts in the same pay period.

"These schedules can be altered daily with no notice," Ms. Kelley said, "making it impossible for CBP Officers to have any certainty in planning personal or family activities during off-duty hours."

The problem, she told the lawmakers, was causing high attrition rates.

In November Ms. Kelley testified before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management and blasted the agency's four-year-old "One Face at the Border" program, which a union statement said "combines the work of inspectors from the three legacy agencies that make up CBP into a single position."

Same Shortages at TSA

This is not the first time the NTEU has called for increased staffing within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. It has also told Congress that staffing shortages at the Transportation Security Administration were lowering morale and causing problems for airline travelers.

The union represents TSA workers at John F. Kennedy International Airport and Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, but does not yet have the legal right to bargain for a wage contract.