AFGE Week in Review (May 13, 2009)

Obama Aims to Transform Federal Workforce: The White House last week issued its 2010 budget, detailing how it would bring about changes to the federal workforce. In order to restore the prestige of public service and deliver quality service to the public, the administration has plans to hire several hundred thousand federal employees in the next four years. It will streamline the lengthy and cumbersome hiring process, help existing workers build skills to meet new challenges, improve training, make greater use of management rotations within and between agencies, and improve ways to evaluate and reward employee performance.

Federal Protective Service Taken out of ICE: The American Federation of Government Employees Local 918 commended President Barack Obama and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano for their decision to take the Federal Protective Service out of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The president's budget, issued last week, transfers FPS from ICE to DHS's National Protection Programs Directorate.

"This was a bad match from the beginning," AFGE Local 918 President David Wright said. "From the beginning ICE has taken every step to reduce the FPS workforce by starving it of all its resources and attempting to privatize the entire agency."

Wright said moving FPS out of ICE and recent congressional efforts to restore staffing levels for FPS law enforcement officers are critical steps in rebuilding this beleaguered agency. FPS responsibilities, such as providing physical security and policing of Federal buildings, establishing building security policy, and ensuring compliance are outside the scope of ICE's immigration and customs enforcement mission and are better aligned to NPPD.

AFGE To Testify About Protecting Workers After Swine Flu Outbreak: AFGE National Border Patrol Council President T.J. Bonner will go before the House Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, Postal Service and the District of Columbia on May 14 to present the union's views and concerns on protecting federal employees from infectious diseases. Bonner will testify about the lack of communication between both agencies and individual workplaces, and agencies and unions; the lack of coordination between said agencies and worker safety and health protection agencies, such as OSHA and NIOSH; the lack of protection for federal workers in border areas and at airports; workers compensation issues; agency responses to the flu outbreak; and AFGE efforts to protect its members from on-the-job exposure to the flu.

House Panel Passes Paid Parental Leave Act: The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee last week approved an AFGE-backed bill that would allow federal employees to take four weeks of paid leave after a birth or adoption of a child. The bill, H.R. 626, will now go to the House floor. Currently, new parents can take off up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave. AFGE May 5 wrote Rep. Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., chairman of the committee, urging him to support the bill, which passed the House last year but stalled in the Senate.

Inside Government: The Employee Free Choice Act was discussed last week on AFGE's radio show, Inside Government. Steven Greenhouse, labor reporter for The New York Times and author of "The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker," updated listeners on where the Employee Free Choice Act stands in Congress. Greenhouse also discussed the labor movement's impact on President Obama's first 100 days in office, and the challenging times facing America's middle class.

Roger Hickey, co-director of the Campaign for America's Future, previewed his organization's America's Future Now conference, June 1 - 3 in Washington, D.C. Hickey then analyzed how today's economy impacts working Americans, and what the country's economic future may look like. Also joining the show was AFGE National Organizer Peter Winch, who provided listeners with an update on AFGE's nationwide organizing campaign at the Transportation Security Administration - which now stands at 32 chartered locals and more than 10,000 members. Winch also discussed the union's efforts to protect TSOs from the recent swine flu outbreak. For more information on AFGE's fight for collective bargaining rights at TSA, please visit www.tsaunion.net.

Inside Government airs on Fridays at 10 a.m. EDT nationwide on Federal News Radio at http://www.federalnewsradio.com/ and 1500 AM in the Washington, D.C., area. It 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 www.afge.org/insidegovernment . Please note there will be a short advertisement prior to the start of the program. The program also airs on Saturdays at 7 a.m. on KTKK 630 AM, "The Voice of Utah," in Ogden, Utah sponsored by AFGE Local 1592.