NTEU Bulletin March 27, 2007

Inside this Issue: March 27, 2007
Top Stories: NTEU to Charter First TSA Chapter at JFK
Headlines: A Reminder: The Office and Politics Don't Mix
Get Involved: Make Health Care More Affordable for Retirees
New on NTEU.org: Importance of FDA Labs Reinforced by Pet Food Recall
Top Stories
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Make Health Care More Affordable for Retirees
NTEU is supporting legislation introduced by Sen. John Warner (R-Va.) that would allow civilian and military retirees to pay their health insurance premiums with pre-tax dollars, as active federal employees are already permitted to do. The bill could save participants an average of $820 per year. The Premium Conversion Bill, S. 773, currently has 11 co-sponsors. A similar bill, H.R. 1110, was introduced last month in the House and now has 80 co-sponsors.
To learn how you can help, click here or visit http://capwiz.com/nteu/issues/alert/?alertid=9541566&type=CO.

NTEU to Charter First TSA Chapter at JFKN
TEU announced today it is chartering its first chapter for employees of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.“TSA employees need serious, effective and determined representation," said NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley. "These employees are charged with securing our entire air transportation network while providing customer service to the traveling public. This is a high-stress job and these employees get little support from TSA management.” The successful organizing drive was conducted in response to requests from TSA employees at JFK who had previously organized together as the Metropolitan Airport Workers Association.NTEU will be in a position to handle grievances, represent employees before the TSA Disciplinary Review Board, assist in filing complaints with the TSA Office of Inspector General, and give TSA employees a strong, unified voice in the workplace.Most immediately, NTEU will fight to change TSA's pay-for-performance system, under which only 2 percent of employees received an 'outstanding' rating, and only 20 percent received a rating of 'exceeds’ expectations. For more information, visit www.dhsunion.org/tsa.aspx.

NTEU Presses for 3.5 Percent Raise For All Federal Workers
NTEU joined a coalition of organizations representing members of the military and their families in calling for a 3.5 percent 2008 pay raise for members of the military federal workforce.
In letters to members of the military personnel subcommittee of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, President Kelley said a 3.5 percent raise would help close the pay gap between these two groups of public servants and the private sector.That figure is a half-percentage point higher than the raise the administration requested for both military and civilian personnel in its fiscal 2008 budget.
Like the military, Kelley said, “federal civilian workers serve their country faithfully and are facing a widening pay gap.”
For the complete story, click here or visit www.nteu.org/PressKits/PressRelease/PressRelease.aspx?ID=1066.

House Committee To Investigate Private Tax Collection Program
The House Ways and Means Committee announced Friday that it is launching an investigation into the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) private tax collection program, an initiative NTEU has strongly condemned.Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) informed IRS Commissioner Mark Everson of the investigation in a letter, in which the congressman urges the IRS not to follow through with plans to award three to five more contracts this year."We have heard too many complaints and concerns about the tactics used by private debt collectors to allow the IRS to issue new contracts," Rangel said in a statement. "We need to investigate these violations to ensure that we are protecting the privacy and dignity of taxpayers, not enabling harassment by these private companies." In testimony last Tuesday before a House panel, Everson told lawmakers that the IRS's private collection program has generated "about five dozen complaints" in the eight months since its implementation. This revelation came as the Federal Trade Commission released its 2007 annual report on consumer complaints with the private sector debt collection industry once again topping the list. (More)President Kelley applauded the congressional investigation and reiterated NTEU's call to immediately stop the outsourcing program. She also pressed the IRS to come clean about taxpayer complaints.For more on this story and NTEU's opposition to tax debt privatization, visit www.nteuirswatch.org.

Who are Federal Workers? New Study Offers Answers
Today's federal workforce is more highly educated and includes more professionals than in the past. The average fed is 47 years old and has 16 years of experience. These are just some of federal workforce trends compiled by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in a paper titled "Characteristics and Pay of Federal Civilian Employees."Here are other findings of this month's report:• The number of federal employees, including part-timers and postal service workers, has declined from 3.2 million in 1990 to 2.7 million in 2005.• The workforce has grown more diverse, with more women and minority groups—including Hispanic, black, Asian and Pacific Island—than in past decades.•The average age of new hires has increased from 32 years in 1990 to more than 36 years in 2005.• Federal employees tend to retire at 59 years old with 28 years of service. Those who resign tend to do so after about eight years of service.• In December 2005, General Schedule employees, constituting 80 percent of the federal workforce, received an average annual salary of $63,000, including locality pay. That same year there were 178,000 promotions of full-time employees.To read the entire report, click here or visit www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=7874&sequence=0.

Headlines
A Reminder: The Office and Politics Don't Mix
The Baltimore Sun, March 23, 2007
With presidential primary campaigns gaining steam, the office responsible for keeping political activity out of the federal workplace is warning employees that e-mails for or against a candidate are prohibited while on the job.
Last week, Special Counsel Scott Bloch rescinded a 2002 advisory opinion stating that the Hatch Act did not prohibit "water-cooler"-type exchanges of opinion e-mailed among co-workers, even regarding political campaigns. Several workers then used the water-cooler language to defend mass e-mails soliciting votes for candidates when Bloch pursued sanctions against them.
In a statement, Colleen Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, described Bloch's new stance on this issue as less-balanced and "over-zealous." Bloch, she said, has an "obsessive focus on regulating the use of e-mail by rank-and-file federal employees," and his efforts could be better focused on protecting whistleblowers -- a mission Bloch "has seemingly forgotten." For the complete story, click here or visit www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/howard/bal-ho.federal23mar23,0,3876074.column?track=rss.

New on NTEU.org
Importance of FDA Labs Reinforced by Pet Food Recall
Spinach, peanut butter and now pet food. Last week's recall of approximately 60 million cans and pouches of cat and dog food is the latest health issue to underscore the importance of the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) regional labs. These are the same labs the agency has proposed consolidating in a plan that would shut down seven of the nation's 13 facilities, along with further restructuring of the agency's field operations.To learn more about the crucial role of each FDA lab in ensuring public health and NTEU's fight to keep them open, click here or visit www.nteu.org/FDALabs/FDALabs.aspx.

NTEU’s Mission: To organize federal employees to work together to ensure that every federal employee is treated with dignity and respect. The NTEU e-Bulletin is a weekly electronic newsletter published by the National Treasury Employees Union for its members. To sign up for the e-Bulletin, unsubscribe or change your subscription preferences, click here or log on to www.nteu.org/UnionOffice/eBulletin/subscribe.

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