AFGE Week in Review (June 2, 2008)
Under AFGE Pressure, OPM Raises COLA for Puerto Rico:
Federal employees in Puerto Rico will receive a
higher cost of living allowance rate next month,
thanks to AFGE Puerto Rico's years of fighting.
The new COLA rate, published in the Federal
Register on May 29, will go up from 10.5 percent
to 13 percent. AFGE Puerto Rico has been
involved in protecting the COLA since 1979 when
the Office of Personnel Management changed the
methodology for calculating COLA without
adequate notice to affected areas, violating the
Administrative Procedures Act. Class action
lawsuits were filed and resulted in a settlement
of over $1 billion in back pay claims. In
subsequent years more lawsuits and appeals were
filed challenging OPM's methodology and raw data
used to come up with COLA rates. AFGE has been
actively involved in making sure OPM doesn't
arbitrarily set COLA rates.
For more information on COLA, visit
www.colasettlement.com. For more information
on AFGE's historic involvement in protecting and
conserving COLA, contact AFGE National
Representative Pedro Romero at
romerp@afge.org.
Meanwhile, a draft bill is being prepared to give federal
employees in Hawaii,
Alaska, Guam, Puerto Rico, the
Northern Mariana Islands, and the
U.S. Virgin Islands the option to gradually
switch over to the GS locality pay system.
Federal employees living in these areas have
been receiving COLA, which is not taxable but is
not counted toward retirement either. Locality
pay is taxable and counts as base pay when a
retirement annuity is calculated. The bill,
which will be introduced by Sen. Daniel Akaka,
D-Hawaii, would also make sure that no one has
lower take-home pay during the three-year
transition. AFGE is working to improve the draft
to include a few things, including making sure
that no employee switching from COLA to locality
pay will ever receive locality pay less than
those living in the Rest of U.S. pay area.
Supreme Court Rules Federal Employees are Protected against
Retaliation after Filing Age Discrimination
Complaints:
The Supreme Court last week ruled 6-3 that the
Age Discrimination in Employment Act prohibits
retaliation against federal employees who file
discrimination complaints. The case involved a
U.S. Postal Service employee in
Puerto Rico who said her supervisor
retaliated against her in 2002 after she filed
an age discrimination complaint with the Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission. The anti-age
discrimination law is explicit in prohibiting
retaliation against private sector employees who
file a complaint about age discrimination, but
the law doesn't expressly address the issue when
it comes to retaliation against federal
employees. Reversing lower court rulings, the
Supreme Court ruled that the law applies to both
categories of workers and the employee has the
right to pursue her lawsuit under the anti-age
discrimination law.
AFGE Makes Ban on Outsourcing Studies at USDA Permanent:
AFGE Local 3354 in
St. Louis
goes down in history of AFGE's fight against
outsourcing after it successfully persuaded
Congress to approve the first permanent ban on
outsourcing studies in the federal government.
Congress last month passed the 2009 Farm Bill
with a provision prohibiting outsourcing studies
of jobs relating to rural development or farm
loan programs at the Department of Agriculture.
The ban, which protects about 6,000 jobs from
outsourcing, has been in the agency's spending
bill since 2004 and has been renewed every year.
Moving the ban from the annual spending bill to
the Farm Bill makes the ban permanent and the
jobs protected from the Bush administration's or
any future outsourcing agenda. The victory is a
testament to the hard work of AFGE Local 3354 in
educating lawmakers about the dangers in giving
away federal jobs to contractors, especially
jobs that are and should be inherently
governmental.
When the ban was included in the 2004 spending bill for USDA,
it was the first ban on outsourcing studies,
known as A-76 studies, during the Bush
administration. Great effort was made by Local
3354 to win key Republican Members of Congress
to understand some of the significant flaws in
the Bush Administration approach to
privatization. This helped lay the foundation
for the anti-A-76 and A-76 reform provisions
that came about in subsequent years at other
agencies.
High Turnover Rates Lead TSA to Launch Referral Bonus
Program: In a desperate attempt to fill a hole in the workforce
caused by high turnover rates, the
Transportation Security Administration (TSA)
recently launched a pilot program that gives
Transportation Security Officers (TSOs) a $700
cash bonus for helping recruit a new worker. TSA
came up with the bonus program after facing
years of high turnover rates compared with other
federal agencies. A high turnover rate means a
less-skilled, unstable workforce, which
undermines – not improves – the safety of the
flying public. AFGE President John Gage said
while AFGE generally supports programs that help
with hiring and retaining workers, the union
believes TSA is not fixing the cause of the
constant employee exodus. Several TSOs might get
hired under this program, but chances are they
will leave after learning that they've been
recruited into the agency that doesn't even give
its workers basic workplace protections afforded
to other federal employees.
As AFGE has repeatedly pointed out, TSA's pay system is
grossly subjective. TSOs can't appeal a bad
performance evaluation to an objective third
party. They can't appeal adverse personnel
actions with the independent Merit Systems
Protection Board. They have been subject to
mandatory overtime. They have been retaliated
against for associating with the union. They
have the highest injury rate in the federal
government. And the list goes on. If TSA really
wants to fix its retention problem, it would
immediately move to grant TSOs the right to
collectively bargain with management for better
workplace rules. AFGE has been working hard to
persuade Congress to grant TSOs collective
bargaining rights. Last year, Rep. Nita Lowey,
D-N.Y., introduced a bill, H.R. 3212, that would
do just that. A companion bill is expected to be
introduced in the Senate this year.
Inside Government:
Rising gas and oil prices, as well as critically
understaffed and overcrowded federal prisons
were discussed on AFGE's radio program "Inside
Government" on May30. Bill Scher, online editor
for the Campaign for
America's
Future, analyzed rising gas and oil prices, and
what it means for consumers. Scher also
discussed the policy decisions that influence
gas prices. Bryan Lowry, president of AFGE's
Council of Prison Locals, addressed a recent
report by Sen. Charles Schumer,D-N.Y., regarding
critically understaffed and overcrowded federal
prisons in New York.
Inside Government airs
every Friday at 10 a.m. EDT nationwide on
www.federalnewsradio.com and 1050 AM in the
Washington,
D.C., area. The one-hour
program discusses issues that impact all federal
and D.C. government employees. Programs are
archived on the Federal News Radio Web site and
can be heard on demand (available anytime) at
http://www.federalnewsradio.com/?nid=300.