Federal Daily - December 10, 2009

Obama Reinstitutes Labor-Management Council

President Obama on Dec. 9 issued an executive order creating a National Council on Federal Labor-Management Relations. The council will include leading federal labor and management organization leaders, and officials from the Office of Personnel Management, the Office of Management and Budget and the Federal Labor Relations Authority.

The order also directs agencies to establish intra-agency labor-management forums, or to adapt existing entities if they exist, to identify problems and create solutions to better achieve agency missions. Agency heads have 90 days to submit their implementation plans.

National Treasury Employees Union President Colleen Kelley, who will participate in he council, said her union looks forward to participating in pilot programs authorized by the order which would evaluate negotiations over “permissive” bargaining subjects—matters agencies can choose, but are not required, to bargain over.

Federal Managers Association President Darryl Perkinson lauded the executive order, but noted that under a prior executive order—issued by President Clinton and later rescinded by President George W. Bush—which established similar structures, agency-level partnerships failed where front-line managers were not included.

See the order at: www.nteu.org/Documents/EOLaborMgmt.pdf.

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House Includes Locality Pay in Omnibus Bill

The House Appropriations Committee late on Dec. 8 proposed a federal civilian pay hike that allocates 0.5 percent of a 2 percent overall average pay hike to locality pay, and the remaining 1.5 percent to an across-the-board raise.  The proposal departs from President Obama’s alternative pay plan, which offered a 2 percent base pay hike and froze locality pay at Fiscal Year 2009 levels. The committee’s plan will be included in a FY 2010 omnibus funding bill.

The committee’s action is in line with a request from American Federation of Government Employees President John Gage, who like other union leaders, had urged lawmakers to allocate at least a portion of the hike to an increase in locality pay.

“Even a small allocation, such as one half of one percent, will reduce the size of the current pay gaps, moving federal salaries closer to the goal of comparability,” Gage said shortly before the proposal was announced.

On hearing of the House measure, National Treasury Employees Union President Colleen Kelley noted that under the administration’s plan, “there would not have been any locality-based adjustments for the first time since that system began operating in 1994.”

To see more, go to: http://tinyurl.com/yeah8gx or http://tinyurl.com/yav7fx2.

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Unions Say Surcharge Unfairly Targets FEHBP

Federal employee unions say a new “Cadillac” tax on higher-cost health plans that is part of a Senate health reform measure unfairly targets average plans like those under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.

A group of unions—the American Federation of Government Employees, American Postal Workers Union, National Association of Letter Carriers and the Communications Workers of America—issued a statement Dec. 8 bashing the proposed Senate excise tax, The tax is designed to raise $150 billion over 10 years—much of it by taxing the middle class, according to the unions.

The unions argued that the Senate health care bill tax would hurt the very people the health reform effort is supposed to help. The bill would impose a 40 percent excise tax on employer-provided health care plans exceeding a certain price. The tax is supposed to penalize those who buy into very expensive health care plans—so-called “Cadillac” plans.

But unions say the threshold for what is considered a Cadillac plan will increase by about 3 percent each year—and premiums for standard employer-based plans have historically risen an average of 9 percent annually. If those trends continue, unions say the tax will hit average workers in a few years.

Unions posted materials they say back up their claims at: www.healthcarevoices.org/pages/federal-workers.

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