AFGE Week in Review (May 6, 2009)

AFGE Calls for Better Protections for Feds against Swine Flu: The American Federation of Government Employees is calling on agencies to develop better plans to protect their own employees from the swine flu. As federal employees are on the front line of the government's response to the swine flu pandemic and are often interacting with the public, they should be fully protected against the virus that so far has killed 27 people and infected nearly 1,500 worldwide. AFGE's Field Services and Education Department has sent out letters to agencies with which the union has labor-management agreements to express concerns and to ask what steps agencies are taking to protect workers. Letters were also sent to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Transportation Security Administration Acting Administrator Gale Rossides. In the letter to Napolitano, AFGE asked to consult with the department about its overall plans and policies and those of various agencies within DHS as many of AFGE members often have the very first contact with those who might spread the infection when crossing the borders. AFGE has tried to raise these concerns with a number of components such as the Immigration and Customs Enforcement but they have not been responsive. AFGE's National Border Patrol Council last week posted some guidance to its members on its Web site at http://www.nbpc.net.

AFGE was also on a conference call with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and other AFL-CIO unions last week to get an update on what the federal government was doing. AFGE requested regular - daily if necessary - conference calls with OPM on the swine flu, which the OPM director has agreed to in an effort to deal with the evolving health issues. Despite the government's efforts to protect employees, AFGE is still concerned that the current policy doesn't go far enough. For example, federal employees who are in direct contact with the public should be provided protective gear such as N95 respirators, gloves, and hand sanitizers. Current OPM guidance calls for the use of N95 respirators only when employees are in contact within six feet of those who appear ill.

AFGE is scheduled to testify on the issue before Congress next week. For more information on AFGE's efforts to protect workers against the swine flu, visit www.afge.org.

2010 Budget Blueprint Includes Advance Funding for VA: AFGE is one step closer to victory in its fight to get advance funding for the Veterans Affairs Department when the House and Senate April 29 passed a final version of the 2010 budget resolution that included language providing funding for veterans' health care for two years at a time. Even though the budget resolution is not binding, it serves as guidelines for appropriators when they draft spending bills. AFGE has been calling for reform of the VA health care funding process to ensure more predictability and adequacy in veterans' patient care dollars.  Currently, veterans' health care is funded by a year-by-year appropriation, which has been late 19 of the past 22 years.

DoD Revises Own Interpretation of Law to Avoid Time Limits on A-76 Studies: In an attempt to avoid running over the 30-month statutory time limits for an outsourcing study, the Defense Department has recently revised its own interpretation of the 2009 Defense Appropriations Act to specify that a study ends when the initial decision is made to award the work to either a contractor or the in-house team. This is in contrast with the earlier interpretation that the clock stops when the initial award is made but starts again if changes need to be made following a bid protest. The new interpretation will allow a job competition – known as an A-76 study – to drag on for years regardless of cost and how badly it is bungled. A recent example includes an A-76 study of fuel services at the Miramar Marine Corps Air Station in California, which overran the 30-month deadline on Feb. 9. In a series of correspondence with Congress, Navy officials contradicted themselves and arbitrarily backdated the award decision by several months so that the job competition of nearly 30 positions wouldn't be illegal. 

Historically, time limits have been used because the longer an A-76 study lasts, the more it costs to conduct (quantifiable costs of hiring consultants and diverting employees from their usual work and non-quantifiable costs of workforce disruption and lost productivity), and the more likely the actual costs of conducting the study will exceed the guesstimated savings. Now DoD is saying that an A-76 study ends at the initial attempt to render a performance decision – no matter how flawed that decision is or how long it takes to fix problems in how the study was conducted. The Miramar A-76 study has lasted far longer than 30 months because of management incompetence, including having to redo the study in order to get the Government Accountability Office to dismiss a bid protest filed by a senior management official on behalf of the in-house team. 

AFGE is asking Congress to stop all pending outsourcing studies because of the many serious problems surrounding the program. 

Bill Introduced to Suspend A-76: AFGE's fight to clean up the waste, fraud and abuse in federal contracting moved one big step closer to reality on April 29 when Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., introduced the CLEAN UP Act, a bill that would clean up the contracting mess that the Bush administration left behind. Specifically, the bill would suspend the A-76 job competition process until substantial reforms have been made. It would encourage insourcing, especially the work that should always be performed by federal employees and work that shouldn't have been outsourced in the first place. It would require agencies to address staffing shortages if there are any in anticipation of the more insourcing. It would also require agencies to establish systems for inventorying all of their service contracts to determine which ones are bad or in need of insourcing. Rep. John Sarbanes, D-Md., is expected to introduce a similar bill in the House soon.

Contact John Threlkeld at threlj@afge.org for a two-page fact sheet about the bill.

DFAS to Bring Back In-House Retiree and Annuitant Pay: The long-overdue do-over has finally arrived at the Defense Finance and Accounting Service when the agency last month announced that it intended to bring back in-house the work of processing monthly payments for military retirees and spouses of deceased retirees – the function erroneously contracted out eight years ago. In an April 20 statement, DFAS concluded that bringing the work in-house would save the agency $20 million over the next 10 years and would improve the overall operations.

DFAS was severely criticized when the Defense Department's inspector general issued a report in 2003, revealing that the consultant hired by DFAS overestimated the personnel costs of the government workers' bid by $31.8 million, making the offer by Dallas-based Affiliated Computer Services appear cheaper. The in-house team's bid was in fact $20 million cheaper than that of the contractor. Despite the audit, DFAS refused to bring the work back in-house, saying it would only compound the mistake.

The transition from the current contractor, Lockheed Martin – which acquired the contract from ACS in 2003 – will start early next year.

AFGE Wins Overtime Pay for Air Force Mechanic:  An arbitrator recently ruled that the Air Force at Robins Air Force Base, Ga., violated the labor-management contract when the agency arbitrarily chose a worker to go TDY (temporary duty) to Germany instead of posting a volunteer list to solicit interest of workers. AFGE represented the mechanic who had expressed his interest to go TDY to Germany two years ago but was not picked because management never posted a volunteer list. Management argued that they did not violate the contract because it was a last minute decision to send a civilian mechanic. The union responded that management's failure to plan in advance did not constitute an "emergency" and the "last minute decision" was not one of the reasons in the contract that would have allowed management to bypass seniority and skills when choosing volunteers. Siding with AFGE, the arbitrator said the agency should have posted the volunteer list and that the employee AFGE represented did miss the opportunity to go TDY and earn overtime pay because of the agency's action. The arbitrator subsequently ordered the Air Force to pay the employee 90 hours of overtime plus interest.

Inside Government: The introduction of the CLEAN UP Act, sponsored by Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) and U.S. Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Md.), was discussed last week on AFGE's radio show, Inside Government. The CLEAN UP Act , or Correction of Long-standing Errors in Agencies Unsustainable Procurement, is designed to repair the broken federal procurement process currently in place. Sarbanes detailed the legislation and share his thoughts on why some government work should always be done by federal employees. John Threlkeld, AFGE legislative representative, expanded upon Congressman Sarbanes' interview with details on how the legislation will impact AFGE. Also appearing on the show was AFGE 14th District National Vice President Dwight Bowman, who addressed Mayor Adrian Fenty's new D.C. budget proposal, which could threaten the jobs of city workers. Charlie Bernhardt, AFGE labor relations specialist, joined the show to update listeners on AFGE's Bargaining for the Future guide and describe how AFGE Local 1401 used it to successfully negotiate a new contract at Andrews Air Force Base.

Inside Government is hosted by AFGE Assistant General Counsel J. Ward Morrow. Programs are archived on the Federal News Radio Web site and can be heard on demand at http://www.federalnewsradio.com or http://www.afge.org/insidegovernment. Please note there will be a short advertisement prior to the start of the program. The show airs on Fridays at 10 a.m. EDT nationwide on Federal News Radio at www.federalnewsradio.com and 1500 AM in the Washington, D.C., area. The program also airs on Saturdays at 6 a.m. on News Talk 940 WMAC in Macon, Ga., sponsored by AFGE Local 987. For more information, please e-mail InsideGovernment@afge.org or go to www.federalnewsradio.com.