AFGE Week in Review (April 6, 2009)

Congress Passes Budget Blueprint to Provide Pay Parity: The House and the Senate last week passed a 2010 budget blueprint that would provide equal pay raises for civilian employees and military members. The $3.5 trillion budget resolutions, however, do not specify how much the raise will be. The White House proposed a 2 percent raise for federal employees and a 2.9 percent increase for military members. 

Senate Confirms Berry's Nomination as OPM Director: The Senate last week unanimously approved the nomination of John Berry as the new director of the Office of Personnel Management.

Full House Passes Retirement Reform Bill: The House last week voted to pass an AFGE-backed bill that would allow employees under the Federal Employees Retirement System to count their unused sick leave towards their retirement annuity calculation. The Federal Retirement Reform Act would also automatically enroll new employees in the Thrift Savings Plan and would establish a Roth-style option for employees participating in the TSP. Roth accounts are funded with taxable income and so the withdrawals are tax-free. The bill, H.R. 1804, would also give credit for the time in service of D.C. Court Service and Offender Supervision Agency employees prior to the transfer of the agency to the federal government.

Bill to Clean up Contract Mess to Be Introduced: At the urging of AFGE, Maryland Democratic lawmaker Sen. Barbara Mikulski is set to introduce a bill on April 21 to permanently stop waste, fraud, and abuse in contracting out. The Correction of Longstanding Errors in Agencies' Unsustainable Procurements (CLEAN UP) Act would bring government jobs that should have never been outsourced back in house. It would encourage agencies to insource new work and certain outsourced work. It would also suspend the A-76 job competition process until all the reforms have been made across the government.    

The Obama Administration is formulating an ambitious and comprehensive reform of sourcing policies that will be announced in September. AFGE staff have been asked by administration officials to offer proposals to be included in that reform. As more senators cosponsor the Mikulski legislation, AFGE believes that it is more likely the administration's final proposal will reflect the pro-federal employee, pro-taxpayer principles that animate the CLEAN UP Act

Bill Would Move TSOs under Title 5, General Schedule: The Transportation Security Workforce Enhancement Act was introduced last week to repeal a provision in the 2001  Aviation and Transportation Security Act that gives the Transportation Security Administration the authority to write its own personnel system regardless of any other law. The bill, H.R.1881, also would bring TSA employees under Title 5 civil service rules, which govern most federal employees. TSA's controversial pay system, known as PASS, also would be scrapped and TSA employees would be moved to the General Schedule pay system, which covers most federal employees, including those at Homeland Security.

New York Lawmakers to Block Outsourcing at West Point:  Two New York Democratic lawmakers Reps. Maurice Hinchey - a member of the powerful House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee - and John Hall last week announced they will introduce a measure that would prohibit the Pentagon from doing an outsourcing study of more than 500 operations and maintenance jobs at the military academy at West Point. The measure would be introduced as an amendment to the 2010 Defense appropriations bill to reverse the Bush administration's policy of outsourcing federal jobs to private companies. West Point tried to cancel the study a year ago after realizing that internal reorganization would be less disruptive and more likely to yield efficiency and real savings. The Army, however, rejected the proposal.

Inside Government: Two media mainstays inside the beltway, C-SPAN and The Progressive Review, were featured last week on AFGE's radio show, Inside Government.

Terry Murphy, vice president of programming at C-SPAN, discussed the channel's coverage of the recent confirmation hearings on Capitol Hill and the G-20 summit in London. Murphy also highlighted C-SPAN's "Washington Journal" television program and Web-based teaching resource, www.c-spanclassroom.org. He also addressed C-SPAN's popular Web site collection, including sites dedicated to the famous Blair House in Washington, D.C., and Abraham Lincoln. Sam Smith, editor of the Progressive Review online newsletter, discussed his years covering the District and Capitol Hill. He shared his thoughts on Mayor Adrian Fenty, labor's fight to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, and the challenges to enact D.C. voting rights. Smith also addressed the economic crisis, and the difference between Wall Street bailouts and auto maker bailouts.

Inside Government airs every Friday at 10 a.m. EDT nationwide on www.federalnewsradio.com and 1500 AM in the Washington, D.C., area. The one-hour program, hosted by AFGE Assistant General Counsel J. Ward Morrow, discusses issues that impact all federal and D.C. government employees. Programs are archived on the Federal News Radio Web site and can be heard on demand at http://www.federalnewsradio.com/?nid=300 or http://www.afge.org/insidegovernment .
The program also airs on Saturdays at 6 a.m. on News Talk 940 WMAC in Macon, Ga., sponsored by AFGE Local 987, and on Sundays at 9 p.m. on KSL Newsradio 102.7 FM and 1160 AM in Salt Lake City, sponsored by AFGE Local 1592.

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