February 27, 2004

GILES FILES
By
Duncan Giles
President
NTEU Chapter 49

On this & that......

Well, as usual the dull moments are few and far between for the Chapter.  

Congratulations to Chief Steward Karen McKibben for getting a proposed termination reduced to a suspension due to her very well written Oral Reply.  On a couple of cases I was working recently we got a proposed 14-day suspension down to 3 days and informally got a proposed 15-day suspension down to 3 days.  This is just part of what Chapter 49 does.  We are always looking to make sure management does things the correct way.  NTEU Attorney Anne Dasovic secured a $7,000 settlement on a higher graded duty case, avoiding arbitration.

Karen is also heavily involved in a couple of other big issues.  She is still trying to get what we at Chapter 49 feel we need in the higher grade of case grievance for the Grade 9 & 11 Revenue Officers.  We just filed an Institutional Grievance over the security clause (at least 2 IRS employees present in a Post of Duty [POD] while open to the public) in a small POD.

Stewards Scott Carder and Karla Weidenkamp are doing all they can to assist the workers in Case Processing and Insolvency in finding them other positions in the event the worst case scenario happens and their jobs are centralized in the Service Centers (but that’s a long way down the road).   

On the additional 2.1% pay raise for this year, I can’t tell you when you will see it in your paychecks (as well as the retroactive portion from the first part of this year).  Here’s an educated guess at this point – we MAY see the raise by late March and the retroactive payment in May – but I wouldn’t go to Vegas and lay any money on it.

Lastly, something we are seeing in TIGTA interviews lately involves employees who, most of the time through no fault of their own, are having trouble keeping up with their financial obligations.  This is part of the code of conduct, so if you start getting in over your head, contact NTEU as soon as you can.  We can assist you with making management aware of your particular situation.  It’s always better that management hear it from the employee properly framed than from a TIGTA report.

That’s it for now.


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PAY UPDATE

Duncan mentioned the pay raise issue. There is much news on the matter of pay.  Let’s start with the 2004 pay raise.  


During last year’s budget cycle, President Bush proposed an average 2% pay raise for federal employees in 2004.  After much NTEU lobbying by  our staff in Washington, and after e-mails, letters and phone calls from people like you, Congress decided to award civil servants the same average 4.1% pay raise for both civilian employees and  the military.  But Congress didn’t finalize the budget until January of this year. Because there was no federal budget in place on December 31, 2003, President Bush implemented his lower 2% pay hike.  That’s what we see in our paychecks today.  However, the budget was signed into law January 23rd and includes the higher 4.1% increase. The higher raise cannot be implemented until President Bush issues an
Executive Order allocating the extra 2.1% between locality pay and the across-the-board pay hike.  As we reach our deadline for this newsletter, federal employees are still waiting patiently for the extra money.  We at NTEU are beginning to lose patience.  We see no reason why this Executive Order has been delayed. A story in the February 20 edition of the Washington Post quotes administration officials as saying the Executive Order is 1-2 weeks away. Once the order is released, Duncan provides our best guess on when we will see the extra money – March for the pay raise in our checks and May for the retroactive increase.

Meanwhile, there is another interesting development on the pay issue. In each of President Bush’s budgets, he has proposed a federal employee pay raise lower than the military raise, and Congress ends up approving  “pay parity,” meaning civilian and military feds both get the same average pay raise. Once again in 2005, President Bush is proposing a 1.5% pay raise for federal employees, much lower than the 3.5% pay hike proposed by the White House for the military in 2005. NTEU fully supports the 3.5% raise for our Armed Forces, but we also think civilian employees should have the same raise. In the 2005 budget proposal, the administration has decided the only way to give a lower pay raise to us is to change the budget rules. The changes proposed by the president would make it more difficult for Congress to override the White House pay raise proposal. We at NTEU will keep you posted on this.  We may at some point ask you to contact your senators or member of Congress on this issue.  For the most up-to-date information on the pay issue or any other items of interest to you, check out our Chapter 49 Web site at

www.nteu49.org

Yet, with the administration trying to hold down our pay raises, Congress is looking into how the government can become a more competitive employer. It’s really not that complicated. NTEU National President Colleen Kelley recently told a House Subcommittee that issues such as low pay, high health insurance premiums and the threat of contracting government jobs to the private sector would cause any sane person to think twice about a career in the federal civil service.                  



MITS NEWS

Just as we are preparing this newsletter for publication, we are learning that IRS plans to offer early retirements and buyouts to MITS transition employees (management now calls them “non blueprint employees).  As we understand it, when the offers are made, employees will have 30 days to accept. Once the offer is accepted, those workers will be off the employment rolls by the first of April, 2004. We are still getting information on this.  Check www.nteu49.org for up-to-date information.      



DENTAL INSURANCE –
A RAY OF HOPE

One benefit not available to federal employees is a dental plan. NTEU tries to fill the gap with our own dental plan (see any Chapter 49 steward if you need information on it). But many of us wish there was a plan covering all federal employees.  For the first time in a very long time, the Washington Post reports that two committees on Capitol Hill are looking into providing a dental benefit for the federal work force.  Currently, the House and Senate panels are studying possible ways the government could add this benefit.  We will let you know if either committee moves forward with a plan.