By MARY SANCHEZ

Most people will find themselves crosswise with an employer at some point during their working years.

When widgets are involved, getting along with the palm providing the paycheck is, of course, a good thing.

But what if the “the boss” is the U.S. government?

And “the job” is ensuring terrorists are not penetrating containers at the nation’s ports.

This is the work world of people repeatedly, yet nebulously, referred to in recent weeks during the Dubai Ports World controversy.

Story after story reports this truth: Security at U.S. ports and borders is the job of the U.S. Coast Guard while the ships are in the water, the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection on land.

Charles Showalter represents many of these workers.

Showalter is president for the National Homeland Security Council, a union representing 26,000 workers as part of the American Federation of Government Employees.

The national furor about a Dubai company taking over management at six U.S. ports has given this Pittsburgh man his 15 minutes of fame, and then some.

He keeps the phone handy, even at home during the dinner hour in case it is yet another journalist, another radio show, seeking comment.

“We are the primary number one stakeholders in this issue,” he says. “We are the tip of the spears. We are the beat cops walking the neighborhood.”

The union represents some of the people who will be held accountable if evil occurs at one of the nation’s ports.

Much of Showalter’s concerns sound like classic disconnect between management and employees.

He cites the problem of not enough people to do the work. Of how pay incentives are handled. Efforts to cut costs by expecting people to specialize in several areas, high turnover and feelings that complaints are seen as whining.

Remember, this is not widgets.

“Post 9-11, a whole bunch of guys in the field did a serious gut check,” said Showalter, a former Air Force police officer and immigration inspector at Pittsburgh’s international airport. “We have to do one process and get it absolutely, positively right.”

What if a worker becomes the guy who gave the entry stamp to the terrorists’ visa? Or, they became known as the one who didn’t check the cargo that contained anthrax?

Such fears are ratcheted by common workplace issues. Take overtime. Say a ship comes in and the inspector is told, “let it sit until morning,” because to continue working would rack up overtime. So the cargo sits, unchecked, overnight.

By morning, when inspectors are back on the clock, they have to dodge the cranes of the longshoremen trying to get the goods unloaded and onto trains and trucks.

Tying up the movement of products is of course not good for commerce. But a major incident at the nation’s ports would surely stymie the economy.

Showalter also alludes to the crux of what many people suspect about the ports deal: “The guys on the ground know a hell of a lot more about how to get this done than the political appointees who have been with the agency for six months.”

He is critical of a two-year-old plan called “one face at the border.” It’s a way to have inspectors cross-trained to handle shipments of agriculture, the immigration paperwork of people and customs shipments of goods traveling between countries.

“It’s like asking your doctor to represent you in court and your attorney to fix your plumbing,” he says.

A 2004 survey of union members found a majority saying they did not have enough resources, training and support for their part in the war on terrorism.

Homeland Security said the survey wasn’t done well and was agenda-driven, which isn’t completely unlikely.

Much of the angst stems from the fact that people are being asked to provide security to the nation, but not so much that it disrupts ever-increasing flows of commerce.

And, they are doing it under the auspices of the Department of Homeland Security, a relatively new government agency still undergoing its own growing pains.

At the very least, there appears to be a disconnect between a chunk of the workers charged with the job of keeping U.S. ports safe, and the people in charge of their paychecks.

With the security of the nation at issue, that can’t be a good thing.

Mary Sanchez is an opinion page columnist for the Kansas City Star.