SEC Enforcement Director Robert Khuzami plans to issue 294 BlackBerrys to his staff by the end of July, BusinessWeek reported last week. While many senior people in the Enforcement Division already have BlackBerrys and have had them for some time, this new distribution will be much broader. SEC spokesman John Nester stated that the SEC believes employees will "welcome the device because it's vital that enforcement staff have all the tools they need whenever they're called upon to pursue wrongdoing."

That makes sense and is probably long overdue, but there is one group that is not fully on board with the concept of being called upon "whenever." That would be the SEC Union (National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) Chapter 293). Chapter 293, the labor union that represents the Enforcement Division's lawyers and others, learned earlier this year of the plan to distribute Blackberrys, and promptly "requested an opportunity to bargain over this change in working conditions." In February 2010, Chapter 293 announced that it and the SEC had "entered into a memorandum of understanding ("MOU") regarding the parameters for the issuance and use of Blackberries in Enforcement."

The key terms of the MOU are as follows:

Blackberries are for use by employees only during their regularly scheduled tour of duty, and thus participating employees may turn off and store their Blackberries when they are not on duty.

Employees' failure to respond to communications when they are not "on duty" will have no effect on their employee's appraisals and will not be considered in any promotion action nor with respect to any other condition of employment.

In short, Khuzami and his senior colleagues can call, email and text SEC Enforcement staff all they want after hours--but can't do much about it if staff members fail to pick up or respond until the next business hours begin. Chapter 293 President Greg Gilman stated in February that "a great many employees expressed concerns about being 'on call' 24/7. This is the type of quality of life issue about which we feel the Union is in the best position to make a big difference for SEC employees." Gilman added that "it wouldn't be fair to characterize employees as lazy," according to Business Week.