June 7, 2005

The Backstabbers - "They smile in your face all the time they want take your place, the backstabbers!"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/06/AR2005060601804.html

Greetings,

The above link is to a Washington Post story about legislation drafted by the administration.  The short version is that it takes the personnel systems forced onto DHS and DOD and implements it government-wide. Without the full text, I can't tell if our "independent" status protects us, but previous administration statements suggest we are at risk. In many ways, this is much like the Chairman's Workforce 21 legislation introduced last session to achieve "flexibility," but it is government-wide instead of just FDIC. Word is that the Chairman did not reintroduce his legislation because the administration planned to bring this forward, making his unnecessary.

This bill will leave our pay entirely at management's discretion. Not being able to beat us at negotiation, they are instead attempting to beat us through legislation. From the story:

The draft bill would prohibit unions from bargaining over creation of the new systems, as well as pay levels and the rules for such systems. The pay systems would "immediately supercede, and render unenforceable, any conflicting provision of any collective bargaining agreement," according to the administration's proposal.

When the administration demanded union-busting rules for DHS and DOD, its story was that those agencies were on the front lines fighting terrorism, so long-standing civil service protections had to be abolished. Critics, including your union, said that the terrorism issue was a smokescreen, and that the administration would soon force this government-wide. The administration said that DHS and DOD could act as experiments to see if the new rules were successful. NTEU said that if that was true, no new legislation would come forward until the new rules had been in place for several pay cycles.  Instead, the government-wide proposal is being introduced before the DHS and DOD rules are fully implemented or even completely written.

We wish we had not been right, but there you are.