AFGE's UnionBlog

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka on Senate Health Care Bill

Richard Trumpka — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:14:00 EST

We commend Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for bringing forward a health care bill that moves us closer to the historic goal of health care for America – high quality, affordable health care for all in our rich nation. The Senate leadership bill takes the strongest steps yet to bring down costs. But the bill is not perfect. It retains a version of the excise tax from the Senate Finance Committee bill. We continue to believe that a tax on working families’ benefits is the wrong way to finance health care and we will work hard to eliminate this provision as the bill heads to the floor.

The bill’s inclusion of a public insurance plan option to hold private insurance companies accountable is a tremendous step. And the legislation should be praised for its other fair financing plans, including an increase in the Medicare tax on the wealthiest and an employer responsibility requirement, which we believe should be expanded to include more employers. The bill would expand access by covering 94 percent of Americans and reduce the deficit by $130 billion over 10 years. Today another hurdle is cleared and we are optimistic that good, affordable care for working families will soon be law.

AFGE Member Kim Munley, A True Hero in Ft. Hood Tragedy

AFGE Blogger — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:38:00 EST

During the horror of yesterday’s tragedy at the Ft. Hood army base, Sgt. Munley and her partner were the first to arrive at the Soldier Readiness Center, where, Major Nidal Hasan allegedly opened fire, killing 13 and injuring 30. Sgt. Munley managed to hit the assailant four times, despite being shot herself. Sgt. Munley currently is recovering from her injuries and is in stable condition.

“Sgt. Munley acted with great heroism, yesterday, as she and her partner were the first to respond to calls for help during the shooting rampage at Ft. Hood,” said John Gage, AFGE national president. “As a part its family, we offer our thoughts, our prayers, our support and our strength to our brave soldiers and their families, and our brothers and sisters, who are affected by this senseless and pointless tragedy,” said Gage.

AFGE represents 1,700 civilian defense employees at the army base, including civilians in the Soldier Readiness Center, employees at the base hospital, and officers of the installation’s civilian police force.

American Bar Association Speech

AFGE Blogger — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:29:00 EST

Thank you for the opportunity to be here today and share AFGE’s views on what we might expect from the Obama Administration in the area of labor relations and human resource management.

First of all, let me say that you have the exact right person to predict the future, I don’t want to brag but I am known as the second coming of Kreskin & Karnac( for you old Tonight Show fans).

After all, I was the guy who predicted the Beatles could never make it in America … I also assured our union that AFGE, and federal sector unions in general, would fly well below the Bush Administration’s radar screen and never even be noticed. Finally, I predicted that George Bush would really win the 2000 and 2004 elections… For those of you counting that’s 0 for 3.

For federal sector Unions in general, and AFGE specifically, its no secret that expectations are currently running very high but, I believe, they are realistic. The elevation of Carol Pope to FLRA Chair and the summary dismissal of the Heritage Foundation’s Federal Service Impasses Panel has enlivened our Union activists was very exciting and long needed.

The Obama Administration named, and the Senate recently confirmed, Julie Clark as the FLRA’s General Counsel. Julie was formerly General Counsel to the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, AFL-CIO for almost 20 years. She has literally shared our pain, she knows what has been wrong, and she will fix it! She is the first Union General Counsel to serve in this position. Likewise, Ernie Dubester, confirmed as the 3rd member of the FLRA, could not be a better pick to re-establish that Agency’s credibility. Ernie was a LLM classmate of mine in Labor Law at Georgetown, worked for the AFL-CIO, and since the 1990’s has been a key member of the National Mediation Board serving Democratic and Republican Presidents.

So too, at the Merit Systems Protection Board, another woefully sorry Agency under the George W. Bush years, President Obama has named Susan Grundmann, the General Counsel of the National Federation of Federal Employees, AFL-CIO, to be the next MSPB Chair. President Obama has named former long-time AFGE Assistant General Counsel, Anne Wagner to be Vice Chair. Along with the appointments of John Berry as OMP Director, and Elaine Kaplan, former NTEU Deputy General Counsel, as OPM General Counsel, we are looking at a much needed, totally new direction from the FLRA, MSPB, and OPM.

Under President Bush one of our most important agencies, the Federal Service Impasses Panel, was – I kid you not - headed by a Vice President of the right wing Heritage Foundation. The FSIP, of course, is the body that resolves bargaining impasses and, until the George W. Bush Administration, it had always been headed by renown arbitrators, labor relations experts, and respected mediators. Obviously, having the Panel headed by the Heritage Foundation was a clear and very bad indicator of how Unions would do before the FSIP when arriving at impasse with the Government. Probably the best example came the first year when our CMS contract impassed on 26 articles. The Heritage Foundation Panel ruled in management’s favor on 25 of the proposals – the majority of which had been in our contract since 1980.

Today, it’s a whole new ballgame with a leveled playing field. The new Panel is headed by a world renown mediator, Mary Jacksteit, who happens to be my former AFGE Deputy General Counsel who left for greater things in 1984. Also on the Panel is Don Wasserman, former Clinton FLRA Chair, Professor Marty Malin, of College Kent who specializes in federal sector labor law. Put simply, all seven new FSIP members are known for their integrity, experience, and expertise. This means that neither side to a bargaining impasse will be motivated to bargain in bad faith and submit draconian proposals, hoping to force the other side to a Neanderthal, politically bent Impasses Panel.

Finally, without knowing who the next Special Counsel will be, I am comfortable in predicting that the person will not be picked from the Faith Based Initiative Office of Department of Justice and be escorted by the authorities out of their Office after having their computers seized by investigators. By the way, I believe donations can still be made on line to the Scott Bloch Defense Fund people.

With the first 9 months spent on selecting competent, pro-government, and union friendly appointments to our key Agencies, we expect to turn to substantive issues. Number 1 for us, now that a TSA Administrator has been named, is the issuance of a Memorandum providing TSO’s with Title V Civil Service, due process, and collective bargaining rights. This is a when not an if, it will happen.

I believe the Administration has made it clear that it is unacceptable to them to have 40,000 federal workers without civil service, collective bargaining and due process rights.

Another issue that dominated the federal sector during the Bush years was the move to use the tragedy of 9/11 to fulfill an anti-union/anti-government agenda. Of course, I am speaking about the National Security Personnel System (NSPS) which reduced appeal rights, collective bargaining, due process and pay. NSPS was to be the new model for all government agencies. Unions in name but with no effective voice. Last week, President Obama signed the NDAA of 2009 which contained the repeal of NSPS. The wooden stake is finally in the heart of the last of the anti-union anti-govnt. Bush personnel systems. We can now look at how we can move forward together in collaboration, pre-decisionally union and management to make government more effective and efficient while creating a high quality of worklife and morale for employees. There is no “natural law” that requires federal unions and Agency leadership to locked in adversarial relationships. In fact, I contend that it is unnatural, since we all are Americans, use government services, and want our country and our agency’s mission to succeed.

Another recent huge success and philosophical “seachange” - which we have fought hard to achieve for over 20 years is President Obama’s directive to start insourcing work. We estimate that close to 100,000 jobs will be brought back from a contractor to a government workforce.

In looking at what’s next, as one of the privileged individuals selected to help design L-M Partnerships under President Clinton, I am very concerned about the future of L-M relations. During the Bush years, Management – from the Senior Executive level to first line supervisors was allowed if not encouraged, to wage war on their Unions. There was a venomous, hateful spirit that permeated L-M R at a lot of Agencies. If you have ever read the comment pages of newsletters like Gov. Ex. Or FedSmith, you can see that a real divide has been allowed to spread between Management and Unions. A real disrespect is out there.

We know that Labor-Management cooperation will be a big part of how the Obama Administration wants to conduct business.

The goal, challenge, and the promise of labor-management cooperation is to transform the government bureaucracy into a high quality, high value work-place patterned after the most innovative private sector companies.

The crucial challenge for us as federal workers and representatives of federal workers is to outperform the private sector and recapture the trust and respect of the American people!

At AFGE we’ve surveyed our members and they tell us that they want to participate in making government work better. The company, if you will, is seen as being in crisis, and the success of the business is paramount to them as citizens and as employees.

We have seen a lot in the press about an upcoming Obama Exec. On Labor Relations. I don’t have any details but, I believe, that the Obama L-M Executive Order will be focused on moving from process to results.

People in both Labor and Management tell me that they are concerned that we have moved back to square one after 8 years of Bush. Folks, I believe that it would be great if we were starting from square one, but I believe relationships are far worse than they have ever been.

One of my concerns is how do we acknowledge, and confront, the ill will and work with each other for the public’s good after 8 years of the most anti-union environment I have experienced in 33 years. Will we in fact do so?

I believe that Partnerships worked in over 30% of the Agencies and Activities where it was tried in good faith. Major changes – beneficial and innovative in delivering services to the Public – occurred in FEMA, the Mint, SSA, VA, and DoD. But Partnership was deeply resented by many Executives and Managers and, when George W. revoked the Partnership Order, many of these folks came looking for their “pound of flesh.”

At AFGE, the top leadership is not interested in looking back for revenge but in looking forward. President Bush and his incompetents have left government in a huge mess. And, any executive, manager, supervisor, union officer, or union activist that does not believe that we will have to use every tool in the new L-M Executive Order to work together to repair the damage – instead of continuing mindless adversarial battles, - really needs to be in another line of work. The damage is too great, the crisis is too large to continue L-M R as usual. To quote Pres. Kennedy quoting Eric Sevarid: “It makes no sense when you’re in a boat with someone in the middle of the ocean to turn to them and say hey your end of the boat is sinking.” Folks, our boat has been sinking for 8 years and we need to learn to row together. That will mean lots of joint training on interest based approaches, as well as new skills in communication and dispute avoidance and dispute resolution. I, for one, look forward to getting back to pre-decisional involvement to create solutions instead of using impact and implementation bargaining as a weapon to stop bad proposals from being unilaterally imposed on our members.

To My Brothers and Sisters Who Work for the U.S. Bureau of Prisons

Bill Gillette — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 03:56:00 EST

(Bill Gillette wrote this in response to recent outbreak of violence at the United States Penitentiary – Lewisburg in Pennsylvania during which five BOP officers were hurt)

We may have to navigate some obstacles and work through various schedules but I have a great deal of trust and admiration for each of you and I'm confident something positive will come of this. What ever happens, I'd like the message to be as straight forward and void of the drama that sometimes gets attached to these issues. It's not my position to attack the Bureau administration or any of its leadership. Frankly theirs plenty of blame to go around at many levels. Staffing and funding is the only issue I care to address right now, to often I see a laundry list of issues being brought forward and many have their pet projects or agenda's to discuss, but none of those issues are as urgent a priority as staffing.

High tech fences are a nice security addition to any facility, but won't save a officer if he or she is being assaulted by a inmate. The best camera systems are useless if you don't have the staff to monitor then. When you continue to use non custody staff, who are not familiar with the inmates or post requirements, you have greater chance of a inmate taking advantage of the situation. Yes we are all correctional officers first, but a correctional officer by position is a much better equipped and efficient performer than those filling a void. The receptionist working at the local garage is capable of scheduling appointments, billing and other administrative functions, but would you be comfortable if that same receptionist was changing your brakes the day you brought your vehicle in for repair due to the brake specialist calling in sick. Just because you work under the same roof don't mean you can perform the same function. It's all about staffing, staffing, staffing.

I think generally we are some what safe in our jobs, with that being said, I make this comparison, 20 years ago we drove around with seat belts in our vehicles, then they added anti-locking brakes, and air bags, all this in a effort to make the vehicle safer. In this case, the Federal Bureau of Prisons essentially has had some of those safety devices removed, their are increase inmates in the facilities, but not staffing, they use non custody staff to fill a custody position, they house rival gangs together and force them to get along and it has not worked, so instead of following our contract and lower the inherent risks in the institutions they have increased those risks. We must do something about this situation now.

Statement by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka on House Health Care Legislation

Richard Trumka — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 03:24:00 EST

Today’s release of a progressive health care reform bill by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi puts America’s working families one big step closer to getting quality and affordable health care, and it’s a model for fair financing. The leadership in the House has crafted a fiscally responsible bill that will provide coverage to 96 percent of Americans and successfully works to lower costs, increase choice, expand coverage and stop insurance company abuses. It will reduce our deficit by $30
billion over the next 10 years.

The inclusion of a public plan option ensures that we reduce skyrocketing health care costs by holding insurance companies accountable and forcing them to compete. The public option also ensures that all Americans can get coverage no matter what.

The bill does not attempt to finance reform on the backs of the working middle class. In addition, the employer responsibility provision ensures a fair share of financing from employers and prevents employers from increasing costs for everyone by dumping people into subsidized programs. We look forward to working with the leadership in both the House and the Senate to continue to strengthen these provisions as we move forward to pass real health care reform.

We strongly believe that these fair financing elements should be included in the final legislation in order to ensure that we are not asking those who struggle to pay for health care to pay even more.

In the coming weeks, working families will continue to reach out to members of Congress to help push health care reform over the finish line.