Union demands timely bonuses for Energy employees

Three weeks after Energy Department officials announced they were postponing all employee bonuses until Congress votes on the agency's funding for fiscal 2007, the National Treasury Employees Union filed a grievance.

NTEU, which represents all bargaining unit employees in the department's Washington headquarters, asked Energy officials to pay the bonuses immediately. Jeff Pon, the agency's chief human capital officer, said in a Nov. 14 memorandum to employees that it would not be clear whether the department has enough money for performance-based awards or even to avoid layoffs until lawmakers approve the Energy appropriations bill.

Lawmakers passed a continuing resolution sustaining the Energy Department at the level equal to what the House passed so far. They are unlikely to vote on the agency's final 2007 appropriations until the next session of Congress, which begins in January.

NTEU President Colleen Kelley said in her grievance letter that delaying bonuses violates the union contract, which calls for performance-based awards to be paid by Jan. 31, 2007. Kelley said the department's decision to hold off on awards "makes a mockery of the collective bargaining process and ignores elementary principles of the laws of contracts."

Kelley also said Energy officials gave union representatives only 15 minutes notice before informing employees of the bonus deferral, which was not sufficient time to for the union to have a say in the decision.

Department officials said they made a hard but necessary decision.

"We're certainly disappointed that the union has taken this myopic view as we're trying to save people's jobs," Energy spokesman Craig Stevens said. "It would be a disturbing irony if people receive holiday bonuses and then pink slips in February."

There is one area of the potential fiscal 2007 budget that is of particular concern to Energy officials. Two amendments were attached to the House's version of the Energy appropriations bill that collectively would cut funding for the departmental administration account from a requested $278 million to $225 million. That account pays for a number of offices, including the general counsel and human resources. Fiscal 2006 funding for the office, which has about 1,000 employees, was $251 million.

If the cuts go through, Stevens said, reductions in force may be necessary.

But in the grievance, Kelley said threatening layoffs was akin to hanging "a sword of Damocles over the employees' heads," alluding to the ancient myth of a tyrant who suspended a sword over Damocles' head by a single hair.

Kelley said in a separate statement that "if the agency cannot find the money to reward its best employees, we would be glad to sit down and go over expenses with the agency."

NTEU asked Energy officials to respond to requests for additional information by Dec. 15.