New Year, New Opportunities
This past year was a time of great progress and achievement for NFFE and its members. We have seen vast improvements in our organizing, stepped up our communications and secured a series of significant legislative victories.
Now, with 2010 in full swing, we are looking to build on these successes and bring our union to even greater heights. In this spirit, I would like to share with you some of the many priorities that NFFE will pursue as 2010 continues to unfold.
In the early days of this year, we announced the formation of the Federal Workers Alliance (FWA), a coalition of 21 unions representing federal workers. FWA members will work together in solidarity to promote favorable legislation and personnel policies for the more than 300,000 combined federal employees it represents. Working side by side with our union brothers and sisters on these matters benefits us all.
Another important relationship we are looking to cultivate is that between labor and management at the many agencies we represent. We intend to play a very active role in the formation of new agency partnership councils. Our goal is to build a strong foundation for robust and productive dialogue to take place between workers and their managers.
We have an ambitious legislative agenda for 2010. Among our numerous legislative priorities this year, we hope to secure pay parity between military and civilian employees, establish a paid parental leave benefit, and to obtain the benefits that many temporary federal employees are denied.
Lastly, NFFE will continue to focus on organizing and engaging new members. With the new Organizing Strategic Plan in motion, we are committing significant time and resources to growing our union. By year's end we anticipate greater growth in members than we experienced in 2009.
With your help, I am looking forward to making 2010 the best year ever to be a NFFE member.
William R. Dougan
Bill Introduced Seeking Indefinite Freeze to Competitive Sourcing
Friday, May 1, 2009
(National Federation of Federal Employees)
This week on
Capitol Hill, Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD)
introduced a bill calling for an across the
board suspension of public-private job
competitions. The Correction of Longstanding
Errors in Agencies Procurements Act (CLEAN UP
Act), S. 924, also contains an in-sourcing
provision urging agencies to bring contracted
work back in-house to public
employees.
Mikulski’s bill seeks to
reform Circular A-76, the flawed competitive
process by which government contracts are
assigned, by leveling the playing field for
federal employees competing with contractors
for work. Furthermore, it would compel federal
agencies to hire public employees for new work
assignments, and bring back jobs that were
contracted out without competition.
Under the bill, all
public-private competitions will be put on hold
until Office of Management and Budget Director
Peter Orszag, and the inspectors general of the
five largest federal agencies, determine that
agencies are implementing policies to level the
playing field for their
employees.
“Federal Employees
deserve to be treated fairly,” said Mikulski.
“This bill will be a major step toward cleaning
up the contracting abuses of the last eight
years and bringing jobs that were wrongly
awarded to private contractors back to where
they belong - - with our first-rate federal
employees.”
“This bill
represents a clean break from the Bush-era
privatization policies that badly depleted the
federal workforce and left the American
taxpayer reeling with debt,” said NFFE National
President Richard N. Brown. “We applaud Senator
Mikulski for bringing this critically important
issue to the floor, and will do all that we can
to ensure its swift passage. Federal employees
deserve nothing less.”
