An estimated 170,000 employees will be integrated into the new Department of Homeland Security. One of the goals of the new Department is to break down the barriers to sharing information regarding future attacks, in order to better prevent them.
"The federal workers that will be asked to protect us from terrorism must be reassured that their current work conditions are altered as little as possible to establish the Department effectively," said Senator Collins. "We must make sure that, when giving the administration the authority it needs to integrate the new Department, we do not create the same problems that civil service laws were originally put in place to prevent. Protecting federal workers in this regard will contribute to, rather than diminish, the Department's effectiveness."
Senator Collins has worked with Senator Gramm(R-TX) and the administration to improve the bill in two key areas involving federal employee's labor rights. The first area is the right of the Department's workers to bargain collectively. Senator Collins has spoken with many federal workers whose agencies would fall under the new Department, and has heard the worker's concern for the maintenance of this right. As a result of these conversations, the Senator has expressed the need for the administration to address this legitimate concern of federal workers to Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge. As a result, Director Ridge has provided written assurance that "the President has no intention of exercising his national security authorities to issue a blanket exception covering the entire Department."
The second area of concern to Senator Collins was the flexibility the administration sought to modify, virtually at will, the civil service laws that guarantee a right of appeal for those federal workers who are demoted or fired. Federal workers rely on the right to appeal the decision to a neutral third party in the unfortunate instance when they are subject to disciplinary actions without just cause. At Senator Collins's insistence, language was added to the Gramm-Miller amendment that would ensure that any changes made to workers' appeal rights will need to meet the test of being fair to workers. Changes that are made that do not meet this basic test will not withstand judicial scrutiny.
"It's important that the administration have the authority to make the Department work," said Senator Collins. "At the same time, this authority cannot be allowed to imperil our basic civil service protections that have served us well for the past hundred years or so. The actions taken at my urging will, I believe, help ensure that the core principles of collective bargaining, the right of unions to organize and the right of workers to appeal, are preserved."
Senator Collins also worked with Senator Stevens (R-AK) to craft bi-partisan language to include in the Gramm-Miller amendment to preserve the Coast Guard's traditional functions which include search and rescue, marine resource protection, and ice operations. "The traditional functions of the Coast Guard are of vital importance to coastal areas throughout the nation," said Senator Collins. "In Maine, the Coat Guard performs about 300 search and rescue missions each year. These missions are literally a matter of life and death."
The amendment now prevents the Commandant of the Coast Guard from being demoted and has him report directly to the Secretary, not the Under Secretary for Boarder and Transportation Security. The language ensures that the Coat Guard will be able to participate in joint operations with other agencies within the Department of Homeland Security, and the Coast Guard can detail employees to agencies within the Department as needed. Additionally, authorities, functions, assets, and personnel will remain intact and without reduction after the transfer of the Coast Guard to the new Department.
"I believe that the creation of an agile and efficient Department of Homeland Security is vital to our national security," said Senator Collins. "The administration has come a long way since its initial proposal to satisfy the concerns of myself and many others. It is important to realize that reorganizing our homeland security agencies into a Department that lacks the necessary flexibility may even reduce our nations's security."