From The President’s Desk

Nov 2008

 

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

 

As you know, the federal employees won an A-76 of the Transportation function at Travis AFB back in August 2001. This local has worked very hard over the last 4 years with Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher to change the law and allow federal employees under an A-76 to have the same rights as a contractor, in that, if they do a good job, they should be rewarded with a rollover instead of another re-competition at the end of the 5-year contract cycle.

 

Well, we finally got that language passed in the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). We then went on a three prong attack. The local applied pressure to get the A-76 rollover advocating the outstanding work of the employees under the A-76. People at the AFGE National Office provided guidance and assisted in working this issue both on Capitol Hill and with the Pentagon. The third prong was easy since Congresswoman Tauscher had championed this issue and she stepped up and put pressure on the Air Force to rollover this A-76 study.

 

On 22 October, we got the GREAT NEWS! The Base Leadership announced at a Town Hall meeting at Travis AFB that the Air Force was ending the re-competition. This was much greater than the rollover requested. The Base announced they were ending the A-76 Contracting Out Competition and MEO forever and converting the federal employees back to a "TRADITIONAL" Civil Service. These employees will not have to re-compete for their jobs again. The nightmare is over! 

 

This was a long struggle. We had to convince a Congresswoman to champion our issue. We had to get AFGE members from around the Country to ask their Congressman to support our Bill to change the Law under the NDAA. We had to convince the Air Force to end the re-competition. Through hard work and sticking together, this local helped change the law and we became the first local in the Country to end an A-76 competition and have the work brought back in house.

 

This is a great victory for you and AFGE! We worked hard to educate Congress on this issue. We worked hard to educate the Air Force to do the right thing. We now have 84 federal employees who don't have to fear that tomorrow, some contractor is going to come and take my job. They no longer have to worry that every 5 years, the need to re-compete for a job that supports their families. This is a great day and the kind of day that reminds us why we became involved in the Union and the positive impact we can bring to the Federal Employees we serve.

 

Attached is a copy of the AFGE Action News out of Washington DC and they discuss our victory. I have highlighted that section! Once again great job to everyone involved. I would ask that you please sign up for AFGE Action News. There is a link at the bottom of the Action News E-Mail or you can go to www.afge.org and sign up there. This is a free service from AFGE and gives you great information as to what AFGE is doing for you!

 

Sincerely,

 
John P Santry
President
AFGE Local 1764

 
 

Transportation Roll Over

 

Congresswoman Tauscher has done a great job in helping get the language in the 2008 Defense Authorization Bill that will make A-76 competitions fairer to federal employees. In 2006 she offered H.R. 5122 which sought to eliminate the automatic re-competition requirement for the work won by DOD employees.  Before the 2008 Defense Authorization Bill was signed only work won by contractors was not required to be recompeted under the A-76 at the end of the contract period. Congresswoman Tauscher became involved in this matter because of the federal employees who work in Transportation at Travis AFB, who had won the A-76 competition in August 2001. This group has won numerous awards, including “Best in Air Mobility Command in 2005”. They also won several Best in Air Force awards. So, even though they were doing outstanding work, the Air Force was going to have to recompeted the work because their was nothing in the law to allow for a rollover. There is language in the A-76 law that allows for a rollover for contractors. Congresswoman Tauscher supported making it the same rules for everyone and felt it would be wasteful to run an expensive A-76 contracting out study just because we have to.

 

Well, for DOD employees, that problem has been fixed. Congress has simply eliminated the automatic recompetition requirement.

 

This is where we need Congress’s help. The A-76 re-competition for our 82 Transportation people was announced on or about 24 October 2007. The Air Force has just started gathering data for the study but no real work has been done. We need the Congressman to use their influence to ask the Pentagon to immediately stop this study now that the 2008 Defense Authorization Bill is signed into law. There is no reason to spend a million dollars running a contracting out competition for a group of employees who have proved during a wartime situation that they are one of the best in the Air Force. Let’s give these people some peace of mind in knowing that their jobs are safe for the next 5 years.  They can finally spend the money and buy that new house or new car. They can move forward and have the financial security to take care of their families. Let’s take the money allocated for this re-competition study and put it towards better protecting our troops in harms way.

 

We ask you to please contact Congresswoman Tauscher’s office and sign on to a letter supporting the roll over of the contract for federal employees in the transportation function at Travis AFB.

 

Sincerely,

 

John P Santry

President

AFGE Local 1764

 

Blue Collar Pay under the Federal Wage System

 

Federal Blue Collar Pay

DoD and the Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) employ the largest numbers of employees paid under the Federal Wage System (FWS), the prevailing rate system for blue collar, or skilled craft and trade employees in the federal government. Blue collar workers at both the DVA and the DoD play an invaluable role in the missions of their agencies. Despite their enormous contributions, federal blue collar workers have faced numerous obstacles in their ability to obtain either the prevailing rates promised to them by law, or even an equitable adjustment in their pay that allows them to maintain or improve living standards for themselves and their families.

Pay Caps Undermine Market-Based Prevailing Rates

Although the law requires that blue collar workers be paid prevailing private sector rates under the FWS, Congress and successive administrations have ignored this mandate almost from the system’s inception. The FWS stopped providing blue collar workers with market-based prevailing rates in 1979, only seven years after the system was established. The Bush Administration has followed its predecessors by imposing pay caps, equivalent to the average GS increase, undermining the ability of the FWS to operate as a prevailing wage system. The pay caps have been put into effect through an annual provision in the Transportation, Treasury and General Appropriations Bill. Even when the government’s own FWS surveys demonstrate clearly that private sector blue collar workers in various markets receive wages that are substantially above the federal rates, the caps on the FWS system mean no blue collar federal worker can ever have his wage adjusted by more than the “average” GS pay raise.

FWS is Hampered by Poor Data

One of the key statutory principles underlying the FWS is that wages should be determined by the market, described in the law as “prevailing levels of pay for comparable levels of work in the private sector within a local wage area.” To carry out this statutory principle, the Defense Civilian Personnel Management Service (CPMS) conducts annual wage surveys to collect wage data from private sector firms. The major reason these data are so poor is that there is no legal mandate for local employers to participate in the surveys. In fact, it is rare when a company chooses to contribute information. Many businesses are reluctant to disclose salary data or other confidential information about their employees, and as a result the FWS rates are often based upon data from small, low-wage firms that do not offer comparable job matches for those in the federal workforce. Consequently, until Congress began to include blue collar workers in the annual GS raise, they suffered for many of the past 25 years by receiving either no annual pay increase or an increase of only one or two cents per hour.

Congress Should Continue to Provide Federal Blue Collar Employees With a Minimum Annual Pay Raise under Pay Parity

FWS does not guarantee workers a general annual increase applied across-the-board. White collar workers who are paid under the GS system, however, are entitled to receive a minimum, annual increase. Under FEPCA, GS federal workers receive both a nationwide ECI and a locality pay raise. With the exception of those paid under special rate authority, GS workers in the same city get the same annual salary adjustment. All federal blue collar workers deserve to receive the same minimum annual adjustment that white collar workers receive. Blue and white collar workers work in the same localities, for the same employer and are parts of the same labor market. The GS percentage pay increase for each pay locality is therefore both relevant and appropriate for federal blue collar employees.