Last November President Obama signed into law the “Vow to Hire Heroes Act” designed to increase employment opportunities for America’s veterans. But a key provision in the act creating an expedited process for hiring returning soldiers for federal jobs is being undermined by the Department of Veterans Affairs– the very agency responsible for improving veterans’ lives!
The VA hires more veterans than any other federal agency except the Department of Defense. However, the agency continues to violate federal law by contracting out work that has been traditionally performed by veterans. The outsourced jobs include many entry level jobs that disabled veterans rely on to get back on their feet after returning from the battlefield. The process began during the Bush Administration, when the number of VA hospitals and cemeteries that outsourced work historically performed by veterans skyrocketed. Jobs that embodied the tradition of “veterans helping veterans,” such as cemetery caretakers, laundry and food service workers, housekeepers, groundskeepers, and transportation assistants, disappeared as more and more contractors were handed the work without the required studies to show whether contracting out was cost-effective to taxpayers. Most of the VA’s contracts violate federal sourcing law that bans federal work from being given away to contractors without a fair competition between public and private employees.
Unfortunately, under the Obama Administration, the illegal outsourcing of entry-level VA jobs has continued. Recently, the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) entered into a $54 million, three-year contract with ACS Government Systems, a major contractor in the federal sector, for claims processing work currently performed by large numbers of veterans. ACS will develop disability and pension claims, help VBA convert to a paperless system, and conduct outreach to encourage more veterans to file claims online. To add insult to injury, the VBA employees are being asked to volunteer to train the contractors to do their work. The excessive use of contract health care services also presents a serious dilemma for veterans receiving VA care and the many veterans who join the VA health care workforce after saving lives on the battlefield.
“Contract physicians and nurses lack the specialized skills and best practices of clinicians who dedicate their lives to serving the veteran population as VA employees,” said AFGE National VA Council President Alma Lee. “It’s the workforce’s commitment to veterans’ care that makes the VA a world-class and very cost effective health care system.”
Category Call to Action, Contractors, Discrimination, Inside Government, Merit System, Prohibited Practices, Veterans, Week in Review |
Extremist lawmakers in the House of Representatives want to take $45 billion out of federal employees’ pockets to fund the must-pass American Energy and Infrastructure Act – or Highway Bill, instead of asking the wealthy to pay their fair share. The bill, H.R. 7, includes the destroy-federal-pension bill (H.R. 3813) that passed the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Tuesday on a party line vote. The bill would force federal employees to increase their contributions to their retirement by 1.5 percent over three years – an immediate reduction in their take-home pay – and would change their retirement calculating formula from high three to high five, effectively taking thousands of dollars from federal retirees. Even though the high five formula wouldn’t apply to current employees, they would get hit by another provision in the bill if they retire after this year. That provision would eliminate the annuity supplement paid to FERS employees who retire before age 62 and are not subject to mandatory retirement. The FERS minimum supplement represents the amount the employee would have received from Social Security if he/she were 62 years old on the day he/she retired, and is paid until the retiree reaches age 62 and begins receiving his/her actual Social Security payments. For more details on what the bill does to federal pensions, read our latest Fight Back News here. A vote on H.R. 7 is expected as early as next week.
H.R. 3813, whose name can’t be more shamefully misleading – the Securing Annuities for Federal Employee Act – was sponsored by congressman from Florida Dennis Ross, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform federal workforce subcommittee. According to the Office of Personnel Management, the average federal pension under FERS is about $12,000-$13,000 per year – the majority of which comes from the employee’s personal investments in the government’s 401(k) plan and mandatory payments into Social Security. While Ross is actively seeking to cut federal pensions, he has repeatedly voted to give millionaires and billionaires tax breaks funded by the taxpayer.
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Category Budget, Call to Action, Discrimination, Inside Government, Law, Week in Review |
AFGE last week sent a letter to the conferees urging them to drop anti-federal employee provisions in the House-passed Social Security payroll tax bill, H.R. 3630. The provisions proposed by the right wing call for a third year of a pay freeze for federal employees as a method for paying for the Social Security payroll tax holiday and unemployment insurance extension. They also require massive increases in contributions to pensions by current and future federal employees while sharply reducing their retirement benefits.
AFGE urged the conferees to adopt the Senate version, S. 1944, which would not unfairly place the financial burden on the backs of federal workers and retirees.
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Category Budget, Pay, Social Security, Week in Review |
AFGE strongly opposes a bill recently introduced that would establish small business advocates to skew decisions and policies against insourcing in all federal agencies. The Small Business Advocate Act, H.R. 3851, would make it more difficult for taxpayers to hold contractors accountable for the cost of their work. It was introduced on the wrong premise that insourcing takes away jobs from small businesses. Of all the 17,000 in-house positions created through insourcing in the Defense Department, which has outsourced federal jobs more than any other agencies, only 6 percent were jobs where the prime contract holder was a small business. With a recent report by the Project on Government Oversight which revealed it’s cheaper to hire federal workers to do the work, it makes no sense to establish an advocate against insourcing.
“Sourcing decisions should be based on law, policy, risk, and cost – not politics and set-asides,” AFGE Legislative and Political Director Beth Moten wrote in a Feb. 1 letter to the chairman and ranking member of the House Committee on Small Business. “AFGE has opposed efforts to establish advocates on behalf of labor unions in the procurement process because it would explicitly inject politics and subjectivity into the process, just as we will oppose similar efforts to exalt the special interests of particular categories of contractors.”
The bill was introduced by the committee chairman, Congressman Sam Graves from Missouri.
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Category Call to Action, Contractors, Discrimination, Week in Review |
A bill was recently introduced to tilt the playing field against federal employees by giving small business contractors legal standing to appeal insourcing decisions while federal employees are still largely excluded from appealing sourcing decisions. H.R. 3893, the Subcontracting Transparency and Reliability Act of 2012, would also require insourcing policies be reviewed by agency small business advocates, but not require federal employees advocates to review outsourcing policies. It would require agencies to publish their insourcing policies and allow for comment, while imposing no such requirement on agencies for outsourcing policies.
“This legislation would allow contractors and procurement judges to determine whether certain functions are too important or sensitive to privatize. As has often been noted, there is nothing more inherently governmental for the executive branch than making determinations as to that is inherently governmental,” AFGE Legislative and Political Director Beth Moten wrote on a Feb. 6 letter to members of Congress.
“There is also no requirement that agencies’ outsourcing procedures should be reviewed by a federal employee advocate. Therefore, there should be no requirement that agencies’ insourcing procedures should be reviewed by a small business advocate.”
The bill was introduced by Congressman from South Carolina Mick Mulvaney.
Category Contractors, Inside Government |
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Call now!
Your Senators are deciding where they stand on contractor bailout right now. Make a quick call and tell your lawmakers to CAP CONTRACTOR COMPENSATION – DON’T CUT OUR PENSIONS!
Thousands of AFGE members have already spoken out via letters and faxes. This is the best shot we have at providing Congress with an alternative to pension cuts. Lawmakers need to know that the American people won’t stand for this repulsive waste of taxpayer money to boost the salaries of multimillionaire contractor CEOs.
Take two minutes and call your Senators.
Let’s make sure their phones are ringing off the hook about this issue as debate begins. Making your call is easy and only takes a few minutes, but it’s one of the most effective ways to get through to your Senators.
Just call 888-907-5171 and follow the prompts to be connected. Click here for talking points and advice on what to tell your Senators!
After weeks of effort by AFGE, a bipartisan proposal to cap contractor compensation will be debated on the floor of the Senate. Today, we need you to take the next step: call your lawmakers so they can hear your outrage and disgust about the contractor bailout. Your Senators need to know that
our proposed contractor compensation cap would save taxpayers $50 billion over 10 years – and it could end up saving your pension.
Can you afford NOT to call?
Tell the Senate to stop padding the salaries of corporate CEOs and end the contractor bailout TODAY.
Our hard-earned pensions need to come OFF the table!
Debate should begin in only a couple days. Please call your Senators today.
Sincerely,
John Gage
AFGE National President
Designed by Tim Sainburg from Brambling Design
Designed by Tim Sainburg from Brambling Design
Designed by Tim Sainburg from Brambling Design
Category Budget, Call to Action, Contractors, Inside Government |
AFGE is holding its annual Legislative and Grassroots Mobilization on Sunday, Feb. 12 -Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2012 at the Hyatt Regency Washington on Capitol Hill. Stay tuned for more details.
Category Elections |
At AFGE’s historic Bargaining Conference in Orlando, Florida, last week, AFGE President John Gage held a straight talk session with the TSA officers from around the country, calling on them to join AFGE to fight back management and their hostility as AFGE continues to pressure TSA to get the best contract and meaningful workplace rights for all.
In Orlando where more than 150 TSA officers that make up AFGE’s Bargaining Congress met for two days, President Gage told the gathering that AFGE will not give in to TSA’s tactics to delay contract negotiations and its resistance to improved working conditions. He said our ultimate goal is still getting rid of PASS, but TSOs need to join AFGE to express support for the union. He reminded the officers that they need to go back to their airports and encourage their co-workers to stick together because it’s the only way to win.
“We have to foster the loyalty to the union and to the badge,” President Gage said. “They need to know that we’re on this job together. You’re not going to be climbing over me to get ahead. I’m not going to be climbing over you to get ahead. And it’s just not the fight for the contract, even though that’s very important to us. It’s this holistic representation – fighting for pension, fighting for pay.”
Category Week in Review |
Thousands of AFGE Social Security employees at more than 130 Social Security offices across the country, along with the Alliance for Retired Americans, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, and the Strengthen Social Security Campaign, took to the streets Thursday to protest recent proposals from Congress that would drastically cut SSA’s budget, thereby hurting the elderly, the disabled, and those receiving services from the Social Security Administration. Congress has proposed reductions from $473 to 882 million from the President’s budget request in SSA funding for 2012.
“Cutting Social Security’s budget at a time that record baby boomers are seeking benefits is another example of bad Washington politics,” said Witold Skwierczynski, president of AFGE’s Council of Field Operations Locals. “These cuts will only punish Americans who count on Social Security and Medicare by adding to backlogs and limiting assistance for our seniors, the disabled and families that have lost a parent or spouse.”
The threat to Social Security is real and immediate. Although Social Security doesn’t contribute one penny to the federal deficit, some members of the Deficit Reduction Committee want to cut benefits and services for tens of millions of seniors, survivors and people with disabilities. And it is not just future cash benefits that are threatened. Social Security services are being cut right now because of already enacted budget cuts. Office closings, shorter hours and the threatened furloughs or layoffs of thousands of Social Security employees are causing immediate problems for people with immediate needs.
Category Social Security |
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Defense Undersecretary for Personnel and Readiness Clifford Stanley has resigned from his position amid an Inspector General investigation into allegations that, among other things, he had forced resignations and retirements of 30 senior executives and civilians and created fear and mistrust in the agency. At least nine complaints were filed with the DoD IG. The investigation has not been completed but Defense public affairs officials said that was not the reason for his resignation.
Category Week in Review |
