The details are as follows:

Location:          Zaman Grotto Movper

                        7818 Holmes Rd.

                        Memphis, TN

Time:                8:00 PM – 2:00 AM

Date:                12/19/2009

For directions Click Here.

For more information, you may contact the Union Office. 

http://my.barackobama.com/pledgeproject

National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) President Colleen M. Kelley urged the House Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee to provide for increased CBP staffing and resources. That subcommittee today is hearing testimony from Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Michael Chertoff on the administration’s fiscal year 2009 budget request; CBP is a unit of DHS.

In her testimony, Kelley pointed out that CBP’s own resource allocation model confirms the agency’s need to hire up to 4,000 more CBP Officers (CBPOs). Despite recognition of the need for additional staff, the White House’s fiscal 2009 funding request would provide for only 539 additional frontline CBPOs—fewer than two at each of the nation’s 327 air, sea and land ports of entry.

“The thousands of men and women who keep our country free from terrorism and our economy safe from illegal trade deserve to be able to do their jobs effectively and efficiently,” President Kelley said. “For the sake of the nation’s security, the dangerous cycle of inadequate resources for CBP that has led to insufficient staffing agencywide has to end.”

In calling on subcommittee members to boost CBP staffing to meet the need, Kelley noted that insufficient personnel are a major factor in serious CBP morale problems, and in generating fatigue and related safety issues. These and other agency actions are causing CBP to lose personnel faster than it can hire replacements. The Government Accountability Office estimates that during 2007, an average of 52 CBPOs left the agency every two weeks, up from 34 such departures in 2005.

“The American public expects its borders and ports to be properly defended,” she said. “Congress must show the public that it is serious about protecting the homeland by fully funding the staffing needs of CBP.”

Last week, NTEU welcomed H.R. 5662, introduced by Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas), a measure that would authorize the hiring of an additional 5,000 CBPOs, as well as another 1,200 agriculture specialists and 350 new support employees.

President Kelley also called on Congress to put an end to the remnants of a failed personnel management experiment at the DHS. NTEU federal court victories prevented the labor relations segments of the rules from being adopted.

“Subjective pay systems that are not fair, credible and transparent undermine employee morale,” Kelley said. “And they put in serious jeopardy the agency’s ability to recruit and retain a workforce capable of accomplishing its critical day-to-day missions.”

In significant part due to NTEU’s efforts, the fiscal 2008 omnibus appropriations bill provided zero funding for implementation of a new DHS personnel management system; NTEU also played a key role in seeing that fiscal 2006 and 2007 funding levels for this misguided, regressive program were well below the administration’s budget requests.

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing 150,000 employees in 31 agencies and departments, including nearly 22,000 in CBP.

The reality of this administration’s failed contracting out initiative is one of irresponsible outsourcing of inherently government functions, cost overruns, poor performance and mismanagement, said President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU).

“It does not take a CPA to see that the mathematics here are fundamentally flawed,” said the NTEU leader. “Very little has been done to validate agency cost savings numbers and this report fails to take into account substantial costs from staff time spent on competitions to loss of experienced employees and declining morale of employees whose jobs are being put on the auction block.”

In fact, the NTEU president noted, OMB acknowledges that past savings estimates have been wrong. OMB had projected $2.8 billion in savings from competitions run during FY 03-07. That figure has now been revised to $1.9 billion, which is nearly 33 percent less than OMB’s original projections.

NTEU cited fundamental problems with the report’s methodology including:

• None of the costs incurred prior to a public announcement of a competition are included when figuring the total costs of a competition. OMB states that most competitions are completed within 13 months of public announcements.

However, in many competitions, agencies spend months if not years preparing for the announcement, but OMB does not count this work toward the overall cost. In addition, staff time and costs incurred working on the competition are not included.

• Savings calculations are based on a simplistic and flawed formula. NTEU questions the use of a figure of $100,000 per full-time employee (FTE). For example, most IRS competitions involve lower-graded positions, with salary and benefits that fall well below OMB’s average figure.

• None of the litigation costs are included. Legal fees add substantially to overall costs, yet are not counted.

• There is little to no post-completion accountability and cost-overruns are not taken into account. The IRS files work, for example, ran into more than a year of delays before the contractor was ready to fully take over the work.

“Work that is contracted out is gone for good, regardless of whether the contractor is performing up to standard,” said Kelley. “In NTEU’s experience, there is always a loss of quality and service and there is no mechanism in place to bring the work back in-house, or to re-compete the work.”

• In 48 percent of competitions held between 2004 and 2007, contractors showed minimal interest in even bidding on the work. “This administration has long been committed to contracting out simply for the sake of contracting out,” said Kelley. “This report shows that in nearly half of competitions in the past three years, one or fewer companies were even interested in doing the work.”

• The report fails to address the tax compliance of contractors.

In periodic audits and related investigations, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that thousands of federal contractors had substantial amounts of unpaid federal taxes. GAO said about 27,000 Department of Defense contractors, 33,000 civilian agency contractors, and 3,800 General Services Administration contractors owed about $3 billion, $3.3 billion, and $1.4 billion in unpaid taxes, respectively.

Kelley renewed her call for the enactment of legislation aimed at preventing the award of government contracts to private companies that fail to meet their federal tax obligations.

“OMB should be required to ‘show its work’ so its claims of cost savings could be fairly evaluated,” said the NTEU leader.

“NTEU is committed to continuing our work in Congress to ensure a fair and level playing field for federal employees and put in place reasonable and fair restrictions on competitions,” said Kelley.

The latest attempt was a recent letter from a bipartisan group of senators to the Senate Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee urging its members to approve increased funding for the agency’s major food safety programs next fiscal year. This money would include a significant funding hike for the FDA’s Office of Regulatory Affairs (ORA) which inspects domestic and imported food and drug products. Earlier this year, the Senate approved a budget resolution that would increase the agency’s total FY 2009 budget by $375 million above FY 2008 levels—the same increase as has been recommended by the FDA Science Board.

President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) said the letter emphasized the senators’ commitment to providing the FDA with the resources it needs to fulfill its role of protecting the wellbeing of every American.

“The Senate is on record as being alarmed about the significant risks that poor FDA funding pose to the integrity of the nation’s food, drug and cosmetic supply,” she said. “With consumer advocacy groups and the agency’s own employees and science board against administration efforts to shortchange the agency, this letter shows that the Senate will not turn a deaf ear to the nation’s public health needs.”

The letter, signed by 19 senators including Sens. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and Gordon Smith (R-Ore.), expressed concerns about inadequate agency resources that they said were crippling the FDA’s ability to perform its mission. They urged subcommittee members to consider the agency’s importance when determining funding for FY 2009. “The FDA’s budgets have not adequately reflected the critical role (the agency) plays in our nation’s food safety system or its increasing responsibilities,” the letter reads.

Last year, NTEU led the charge to block agency efforts to reorganize and downsize its food and drug safety operations, highlighting that there was no real evidence that the effort would help the agency become more efficient or productive. Several members of Congress also objected to the plans and the approval of the FY 2008 omnibus appropriations bill late last year included NTEU-supported language prohibiting the FDA from closing seven of the agency’s 13 regional field labs.

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing 150,000 employees in 31 agencies and departments, including more than 5,200 in the FDA.

National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) President Colleen M. Kelley said that the pay raise included in the mark up of the National Defense Authorization Bill by the Senate Armed Services Committee is well deserved considering the essential services provided by the men and women who wear our country’s uniform and called on Congress to approve a similar 3.9 percent pay hike for federal civilian employees. The White House budget blueprint, released in February, calls for only a 3.4 percent raise for members of the military and a 2.9 percent raise for the federal civilian workforce.

“By their day-to-day efforts on behalf of all Americans, both of these groups of federal employees serve our country and play an important role in defending our nation,” President Kelley said. “They deserve a fair pay increase that reflects their continuing contributions. Anything less will only accelerate the loss of skilled, experienced and dedicated employees from a wide range of federal agencies.”

President Kelley previously wrote to members of the Armed Services Committee supporting the Military Coalition’s request for a 3.9 percent pay raise.

A 3.9 percent pay hike would reflect the applicable Employment Cost Index (ECI) of 3.4 percent, plus one-half of one percent, which is the formula that has been used in recent years. The ECI is put together by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and reflects employment costs across the country.

In light of the fact that a significant number of current federal employees will reach retirement eligibility over the next few years, the NTEU leader said that the real question is the government’s ability to recruit and retain talented employees who are highly-sought after by private employers.

“It is bad enough that this White House has made clear it does not respect or value the contributions of federal employees,” President Kelley said. “But, its pay recommendations send a message that it does not care whether agencies have the high-quality employees the public deserves.”

Fair and adequate raises also would help close the acknowledged gap in pay between civilian federal workers and the private sector—currently standing at an average of 23 percent. Closing the gap with the private sector was the stated goal of the 1990 Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act (FEPCA), which created a system of locality pay but which has not been implemented as intended since its enactment.

Any failure to attempt to close the public-private sector pay gap will put the federal government at a further disadvantage with the private sector in hiring, she said.

National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) President Colleen M. Kelley welcomed news of the FDA’s hiring initiative, which promises to create 600 new staff positions and backfill more than 700 current vacancies by Oct. 1. But, she said, much more needs to be done to strengthen the agency’s ability to protect and preserve the nation’s health.

“NTEU has been vocal about the need for increased staffing at the FDA for some time, warning that critical staff positions were being left vacant,” said President Kelley.

NTEU and the Alliance for a Stronger FDA successfully lobbied for increased funding for the Fiscal Year 2008 FDA budget, but the NTEU leader said a much greater increase is necessary.

“This new hiring plan is a good start, but recent FDA budgets have not properly captured the agency’s critical role in ensuring the efficacy of our nation’s medical and nutritional safety system,” Kelley said. “Congress, consumer advocacy groups, as well as the agencies’ own employees and Science Board, all are on record as being alarmed about the significant risks that poor FDA funding pose to the integrity of the nation’s food and drug supply.”

This year, NTEU and the Alliance for a Stronger FDA successfully pressed for Senate approval of a recent budget resolution that would increase the agency’s total FY 2009 budget by $375 million above FY 2008 levels—the same increase as has been recommended by the FDA Science Board. This funding would include a significant boost to its Office of Regulatory Affairs (ORA) which inspects domestic and imported food and drug products.

Last year, NTEU also fought for—and won— language in the FY 2008 omnibus appropriations bill prohibiting the FDA from closing seven of the agency’s 13 regional field labs and moving forward with a much-maligned reorganization effort.