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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."

COMMENTS

• I have worked with both NTEU and AFGE folks. The cultures are almost diametrically opposite. Thanks to Bob Tobias' legacy, NTEU national still runs an extremely tight ship -- organized, efficient etc. For all intents and purposes the chapters report and are controlled tightly by national. I was once very much under that control. AFGE national is a federation run by its locals. As organized and efficient as NTEU is, AFGE is unorganized, sloppy, and inefficient. In many respects it is very much like the entire federal government. I'm not at all surprised that NTEU beat AFGE. Given everything being equal, organization and results will win in the end. NTEU could show a lot of court cases overturning DHS on a wide range of issues. This has caused AFGE to wake up and start acting as a tighter union. It may be too little and too late. It is too late at CBP -- maybe it’s not too late at DoD. Start consolidating your units, especially at DoD! The problem is 1,500 presidents with turf fighting among separate BUs. Good luck Mr. Gage! GovExec.com reader Posted July 6, 2006 1:45 PM
• So what? Who really cares? Unions are worthless! Government Manager Posted July 5, 2006 12:33 PM
• Congratulations to NTEU. It will be interesting to see how pulling in all the former AFGE folks into NTEU in a very large contingent of non-Treasury employed union members forces needed changes with NTEU -- starting with the name The National Treasury Employees Union now having a huge percentage of non-Treasury employees. The bulk of its membership and leadership is still IRS but that percentage is going down pretty fast. I applaud Colleen Kelley for taking on this project but one should always be careful what they wish for. The forced culture change may not be to the liking of the IRS leadership of NTEU. GovExec.com reader Posted June 29, 2006 8:11 AM