<p> "MAXhr&rdquo;, the new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) personnel system authorized as part of the most significant government restructure of the past 50 years by the Homeland Security Act (HSA), fundamentally altered labor relations policies for 170,000 DHS employees. A subsequent National Security Personnel System at the Department of Defense was modeled after MAXhr and expanded similar changes to nearly 700,000 federal civilian employees. Within this context of these systemic changes, the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) litigated a decade-long challenge to uphold key provisions of its collectively bargained agreement with the US Customs Service (USCS). Fifteen years after the HSA merged USCS into the new US Customs and Border Protection agency within the DHS, NTEU&rsquo;s initial legal setbacks have been resolved with precedential victories and pending back pay awards upholding its collective bargaining rights while rolling back the personnel management systems instituted in the name of homeland security.</p>

<p> The National Labor Relations Act sets forth limited definitions of what it means to be an employer and an employee in the twentieth-century industrial economy, and bestows on the National Labor Relations Board the authority to classify employees and employers. The past half-century has witnessed the growth of triangular staffing arrangements such as franchises, independent contractors, temporary help services firms, and a service sector in which many contingent workers may not qualify as employees, leaving them unprotected by the Act. By examining Board decisions addressing joint-employer and independent contractor status since 1960, this paper has identified increased polarization&mdash;the tendency of Democratic and Republican Board members to vote in opposing, and often politicized directions&mdash;in Board decisions classifying employers and employees. The findings suggest that in determining worker eligibility for protection under the Act, the Board is more polarized than at any point in 50 years.</p><p>