GSA chief says he will decide warehouses' fate

The General Services Administration has tried to work with the union representing its employees about the fate of eight Federal Supply Service warehouses, but management will make the final decision on whether to close the facilities, GSA Administrator David Barram said Tuesday in an exclusive interview with GovExec.com.

The fate of the Federal Supply Service warehouses has been debated at length since September, when an independent arbitrator ordered GSA to work with the American Federation of Government Employees to come up with a solution to financial problems in GSA's stock distribution program.

Union members, GSA employees and other stakeholders have attacked the shutdown as a poorly planned business decision. But Barram said the initial decision was sound.

"People think there should be a Price Waterhouse report that they can all go examine, but that's not what we do here," Barram said. Before the shutdown decision, GSA gathered extensive data about warehouse operations, he said. "We are perfectly capable of making this decision with the people we have and with the data we have."

Barram dismissed union claims that he overstated losses by saying the warehouses would lose $100,000 a day this year. Such nitpicking is "a distraction from what we're trying to accomplish," he said. The figure was arrived at by estimating a $29 million loss in the year 2000 divided by the working days in the year, he said.

Barram also repudiated claims that sales in the stock distribution program are actually increasing and that GSA has not been disclosing all financial data. "There is no way you could credibly say that the business is not in a decreasing mode. It is just absolutely unfair to throw that stuff up," he said.

Some employees have suggested that Barram's shutdown decision was a political move aimed at pleasing reinvention-minded Al Gore. But Barram said he and Gore have never discussed the FSS warehouses.

"I have no intention of being here in a Gore administration," Barram said. "Probably Washington has had enough of me."

AFGE President Bobby L. Harnage has accused Barram of ignoring a presidential memo asking agency heads to make partnerships with unions work. Barram defended his commitment to partnership and said claims that he broke a promise to bargain are inaccurate.

Maintaining a partnership with AFGE will be a tough challenge, Barram acknowledged-especially when it comes to dealing with decisions affecting people's jobs. "If we can have a partnership on a subject this tough, maybe we can have partnerships on everything," Barram said.

The original decision to close the warehouses would have adversely affected the distribution of products made by blind and severely disabled employees and would likely have put many such employees out of work. FSS Commissioner Frank Pugliese says GSA is committed to making sure that doesn't happen.

Pugliese, who sits on a presidential council overseeing the Javits-Wagner-O'Day (JWOD) program, a federal effort to harness government purchasing power to buy goods produced by blind and disabled people, said GSA will continue to support the JWOD program. GSA, he noted, has pushed JWOD products in its promotional materials.

"Marketing is critical to helping remind [people] of their social responsibility," Pugliese said.

Feedback from GSA's customers in agencies about the proposed warehouse shutdown and subsequent negotiations hasn't been as negative as he expected, Pugliese said. GSA told its customers they would not be left in the lurch, Pugliese said, "and they know we mean that."

Although labor-management discussions were halted early last week, Barram and Pugliese insisted they have not yet made a final decision on the fate of the warehouses and their employees. "I wouldn't put people through this for show," Pugliese said.

The decision to shut down the warehouses again is "entirely possible," Barram said. That decision will likely be made in early December. "As a top management guy in the organization, I have to understand management rights," Barram said. "The responsibility to decide on the organizational structure part of GSA is mine."