Federal Daily - June 12, 2009

Senate Strips Sick-Leave Language from Bill

The Senate on June 10 defeated an amendment that would have given employees under the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) credit for unused sick leave at retirement. The amendment, sponsored by Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), was to be attached to H.R. 1256, a bill that contains a series of measures to improve the federal workplace. The Senate voted 67-30 to end debate on the bill, and the Lieberman amendment—which would have enabled FERS employees to count unused sick leave toward their retirement annuities like their Civil Service Retirement System counterparts—was stripped from the final measure. The Senate expects to vote on the bill on June 12 and then reconcile it with the House version, which contained the FERS language. Federal labor leaders urged House lawmakers to reinsert the sick-leave language during reconciliation. “We are very discouraged that the Senate failed to reach an agreement on this proposed amendment to H.R. 1256 which would have provided federal employees and American taxpayers alike with immeasurable benefits,” Federal Managers Association President Darryl Perkinson said. Other measures to enhance the federal workplace survived, including provisions that would automatically enroll new federal civilian hires into the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP), enable TSP enrollees to create a Roth 401(k); and permit spouses of deceased federal employees to continue managing their funds in the TSP. To see more, go to: www.fedmanagers.org/public/announcement.cfm?id=335.

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Group Calls for Tougher Protections for Federal Whistleblowers

Whistleblower advocates on June 10 told senators that they need to further expand whistleblower protections contained in a bill that is now under consideration in the Senate. Although the bill, S. 372, bolsters federal employee whistleblower rights, it is not as good as the House version, H.R. 1507, said Government Accountability Project Legal Director Tom Devine. Devine was testifying before a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee that was considering changes to S. 372. While both bills add improvements to the Whistleblower Protection Act (WPA), Devine said the House version is superior because it gives federal employees access to jury trials if their cases get stuck in bureaucratic and administrative limbo. Furthermore, the House bill protects national security whistleblowers who report wrongdoing and corruption to authorized members of Congress or designated officials within their agencies. The Senate bill does not. “Instead of creating safe channels, [WPA] degenerated into an efficient mechanism to finish off whistleblowers by rubber-stamping retaliation with an official legal endorsement of any harassment they challenge,” Devine said. “It has become would-be whistleblowers’ best reason to look the other way.” To see more, go to: www.whistleblower.org/doc/2009/devinesenatetestimony.pdf or http://hsgac.senate.gov

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APWU Rebuffs Postal IG’s Recommendation

The president of the American Postal Workers Union (APWU) this week expressed dismay over a recent Postal Service Inspector General (IG) report’s suggestion that the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) glean savings by contracting out USPS custodial services at larger New York City (NYC) facilities. According to a USPS IG report released in April, the larger post offices—which are prohibited from privatizing custodians under USPS’s 2006-2010 contract with APWU—incur increased costs because full-time USPS employees at the facilities earn hourly wages that are $10 higher than prevailing contractor rates. The report said the Postal Service “has an opportunity to negotiate the removal of this restriction in the new collective bargaining agreement to realize savings as positions become available through attrition.” But in a June 10 article on the union’s Web site, APWU President William Burrus said the IG’s suggestion “reflects a level of ignorance of the bargaining process, which requires mutual agreement.” Burrus also said USPS ignores many opportunities for more efficient use of it resources. “We fail to understand postal management’s refusal in previous negotiations to apply a cost-benefit standard to all decisions on subcontracting,” Burrus said. To see more, go to: http://apwu.org/news/webart/2009/09-065-oig-contracting-090610.htm.

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