Federal Daily - May 1, 2009

OPM to Expand Agency Telework Opportunities

Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Director John Berry on April 29 announced plans to dramatically expand telework opportunities for federal employees, giving tens of thousands more workers the chance to occasionally avoid commutes and work from home. Today, only 5 percent of the nation's 1.9 million federal employees telework, which typically allows employees to work from home one or two days each week on a regular basis. Berry wants to change that. “I’m here to put some giddy-yap into telework,” said Berry. “I know a little something about the traffic congestion that frustrates commuters and saps them of energy even before they get to the office. With a sensible approach to creating model telework programs, thousands more employees will work from home one or two days each week.” OPM’s plan, which is drawn from two bills pending before Congress, would convene an advisory group of telework program managers to formulate telework standards and mandate that agencies submit telework policies for review. The plan also would encourage each agency to establish the position of telework managing officer and push agencies to establish an effective and transparent appeals process for employees whose requests for telework or other flexible work arrangements are denied. Lastly, it would assure that managers are fully trained on telework to remove their resistance to having staff work “out of sight,” Berry said. To see more, go to: www.opm.gov/news/opm-director-berry-drives-plan-to-increase-telework-among-federal-employees,1460.aspx.

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Mikulski Bill Would Eradicate A-76 Privatization Provisions

Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., has introduced a bill that—if signed into law—would abolish provisions of the Office of Management and Budget’s suspended Circular A-76 program, an effort by the previous administration to shift civil service jobs to the private sector. The bill, the CLEAN UP Act, is a follow-up to language in the Fiscal Year 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act which suspended all new A-76 competitions until the entire privatization process could be reviewed by the new administration. The act would make such a review unnecessary because it would prohibit such competitions. The acronym CLEAN UP stands for Correction of Long-standing Errors in Agencies’ Unsustainable Procurement. The bill would require agencies to return back in-house those functions that are inherently governmental or related to inherently governmental functions, and those which are mission-essential, but which had been wrongly contracted out, said John Gage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, which supports the bill. The legislation also would require agencies to determine where they are experiencing shortages of federal employees, and to develop strategies to correct these deficiencies, Gage said in an April 29 statement. And, the bill also would require agencies to establish inventories of service contracts so they can determine which ones should be eliminated or in-sourced, Gage said. “The CLEAN UP Act would go a long way toward making the federal procurement process more accountable to taxpayers and all of the American people who depend on the government for important services,” said Gage. To see more, go to: www.afge.org/Index.cfm?Page=PressReleases&PressReleaseID=989.

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Judge Awards Compensation, Back Pay to Transgender Job Applicant

A federal judge has awarded $491,190 to an applicant for a senior Library of Congress research analyst position when she was denied a job after announcing her intention to transition from male to female. The judge ruled last year in favor of Diane Schroer, who charged that the Library of Congress unlawfully refused to hire her in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which protects against sex discrimination in the workplace. In the lawsuit filed in 2005, Schroer said she was offered a job with the library, but it was rescinded after she told her prospective boss that she was in the process of transitioning to a female. The judge’s latest ruling was to establish remedies and awards, according to documents posted April 29 on the Web site of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which represented Schroer in the case. The court awarded Schroer a total of $491,190, including $183,653 for back pay and benefits, $300,000 for emotional pain and suffering, and $7,537 for other out-of-pocket expenses that were incurred as a result of the library’s discriminatory conduct. The “decision is especially gratifying because it puts all employers on notice that transgender discrimination, in addition to being wrong, can be very expensive,” said Sharon McGowan, an attorney with the ACLU Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Project. To see more, go to: www.aclu.org/lgbt/transgender/39498prs20090429.html.

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