NTEU releases workforce reform agenda

The National Treasury Employees Union has released a comprehensive agenda for rebuilding the federal workforce that will be the basis for discussions with President-elect Obama's transition team and Congress, and will help prepare front-line employees to make suggestions to Obama's agency policy review teams.

"This document will represent our priorities for critical first steps," NTEU President Colleen Kelley said of the 29 recommendations for administrative and legislative action. "This is not a wish list. This is a framework for a very serious discussion. I think President-elect Obama is very much in sync with NTEU's views on these issues."

Kelley said the document was delivered to the Obama transition team, and that the union was working to schedule a meeting with the team's members to discuss NTEU's recommendations.

The union also provided the document to its chapters and posted it on the NTEU Web site.

"I've started seeing some e-mail chatter about it," Kelley said. "Once we know where those opportunities will be for front-line employees to have those conversations [with review teams], we will provide any information that will be helpful to them for having those conversations."

Some of the recommendations are specific to agencies where NTEU has large numbers of members or is trying to organize new bargaining units. The first item on the list is to enact collective bargaining rights for Transportation Security Administration employees. NTEU and the American Federation of Government Employees are both trying to organize TSA workers. Obama told AFGE President John Gage in an Oct. 20 letter that the lack of collective bargaining rights for TSA employees was unacceptable.

Kelley said a new TSA administrator could grant agency employees collective bargaining rights, but that the union would likely continue to pursue collective bargaining legislation.

"We would like to see it in the statute so it cannot be taken away," she said.

The agenda also emphasizes contracting transparency and pushes for agencies to do more to justify contracting out work traditionally performed by government employees. NTEU has waged a long battle against Internal Revenue Service contracts that outsource some tax collection work to private sector companies. One request on the agenda is to allow those contracts to expire. Kelley said Obama had expressed similar concerns in answers to a pre-election questionnaire, and that she expected he would be supportive of NTEU's efforts.

Other suggestions focus on the state of certain agencies overseeing the workforce, in particular the Federal Labor Relations Authority. NTEU is calling for Obama to order the FLRA to move swiftly on its backlog of cases and fire all members of the Federal Service Impasses Panel. This would make it possible for the FLRA to issue complaints even when the position of general counsel is vacant and no acting member is designated.

In another letter to AFGE's Gage, Obama said improving knowledge about labor rules would be a priority.

"In all of my administration's hiring decisions, I will work to ensure that each nominee has a clear understanding of the labor-management collective bargaining process and my commitment to assuring its fairness," Obama wrote. "The same goes for my appointments to the Federal Labor Relations Authority and the Federal Service Impasses Panel."

Kelley said she was optimistic about the agency policy review teams, which include Elaine Kaplan, a former NTEU deputy general counsel, and Sally Katzen, a former OMB official during the Clinton administration.

"When you look at someone like Sally Katzen, who is a team leader and will be looking at a lot of the issues around how federal agencies run, she has a very solid background and a solid relationship working with employees and with unions," Kelley said. "She's very knowledgeable about the federal workforce."