March 12, 2004
GILES FILES
By
Duncan Giles
President
NTEU Chapter 49
On this & that......
Just learned this past week that LMSB is going to be realigning a little
and SB/SE a lot.
LMSB is (with their recent pickups) looking to have some employees report
to a different manager. Not a huge shake-up but enough to disturb people.
We are aware of your concerns and will do what we can to address them.
In SB/SE, it looks like this - by around the first of the fiscal year, all
RO groups in Indiana will report to Joyce Peneau. Most of the Exam
groups will report to Bill Pittman. The exception will be one or two groups
down south – they will probably report to a downstate Illinois Territory
Manager.
Congrats to Mike Keethers. He recently represented an employeee and
got a proposed 15 day suspension down to 3 days.
An issue that has cropped up more and more in the last 18 months is AWOL
(absent without leave), where people would have once gotten LWOP (leave without
pay). We need to remember that unless you are in one of the circumstances
when the Service must give you LWOP (Family Medical Leave Act – FMLA – Military
Service, etc.) management does not have to give you LWOP in the vast majority
of instances. Please be aware of this.
If you are a Chapter 49 member, be sure to check out the NTEU national Web
site (www.nteu,org) if you haven’t seen it since the update was completed
last fall. You will find great information on all benefits to which
you are entitled as a member of NTEU, and national goings-on as well.
You can even update your address there. Take a look when you can.
Speaking of members, we are beginning a recruiting drive! Here’s the
deal. Chapter 49 will be running this contest from March 15th to May
17th. We will be paying money to the top three recruiters. The potential
payoff is anywhere from $25 all the way up to a possible $200. Check
out the details on our Chapter 49 Web site (www.nteu49.org.).
That’s it for now.
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2004 PAY FINALLY
SETTLED:
2005 ACTION STARTED
There is plenty of news about pay. Let’s start with 2004, then move
to what’s already happening with 2005.
President Bush finally signed the executive order implementing the 2004 full
4.1% average pay hike for civilian federal workers. As you may recall,
President Bush implemented the lower 2% wage increase on December 31, 2003
when Congress failed to act on a fiscal year 2004 budget by the end of the
calendar year. When Congress came back in January of this year and
passed the higher 4.1% average pay raise, the White House waited until March
4th to allocate the additional pay raise between locality and across-the-board
amounts in the pay hike.
Here’s how Indiana came out. The employees working out of the Merrillville
office came out best, since they are tied-into the Chicago-area pay raise
- they get a 4.57% raise. Indianapolis-area employees will get a 3.9%
raise. Employees not in the Indy-area or Merrillville will see a 3.9%
hike in wages. IRS will need to implement the new pay schedule and
arrange for back pay, since the raise is retroactive to the first full pay
period in 2004. When this same scenario occurred last year, it took
several months for all this to happen. Let’s hope it will take less
time this year. You can link to the new pay tables by going to our
Chapter 49 Web site at www.nteu49.org.
Indianapolis and the rest of Indiana (except Merrillville) just escaped the
dubious honor of being the lowest pay-raise amount area in the nation.
Kansas City received a 3.89% raise. The largest percentage raise was
given to federal workers in the San Francisco area – a 5.25% pay hike.
Locality raises are not based on the cost of living, they are based on a
complex formula tied to the cost of labor.
Meanwhile, Congress is beginning the budget process for 2005, and federal
pay is front and center as an issue. The Senate Budget Committee has voted
on a budget resolution that includes “pay parity,” meaning civilian federal
workers and the military should receive the same average percentage pay increase.
Since President Bush has recommended a 1.5% increase for us, and 3.5% for
the military, you can see how important pay parity is to us. Meanwhile,
in the House, the Budget Committee Chair announced that he no longer favors
pay parity and he has a letter signed by 50 House members arguing that pay
parity should end. When NTEU asked for a copy of the letter with a
list of the names of the House members that signed the letter, the committee
staff declined. We may ask you at some point to contact your member
of Congress and Senators on the pay issue. For the most up-to-date
information on the 2005 pay raise as it winds its way through the legislative
process, check our Chapter 49 Web site at www.nteu49.org.
EARLY OUT/BUYOUT
In our last newsletter, we gave you late-breaking news that MITS and some
other IRS employees would soon be getting early-out or buyout offers.
Just after we finished that newsletter, management told NTEU there had been
a “misunderstanding” and the offers would not happen quite that way.
Once management gave us more details, NTEU national made the decision to
begin formal bargaining. Our biggest concern is that IRS wants to have
different policies in all operating divisions, meaning a person in one division
may get an offer, while an employee with an identical situation in another
IRS division may not receive an offer. It’s amazing how often we hear from
management that we are one IRS, yet every time important decisions impacting
the lives of IRS employees are at hand, the Service wants to become several
different agencies at once, all with different ways of treating the employees
within their realm. We are aware that some non-bargaining unit employees
have already received early-out and buyout offers. Be assured NTEU
will not act in a manner that will delay these offers, but we must be sure
whatever system is used is fair to workers and allows the maximum number
of employees to have access to these offers.