More and more questions are being asked about Andrew Saul's status. What is this "Acting Commissioner" business? If he's only Acting, why hasn't he been fired? Biden would surely prefer someone else as Commissioner. This cute business of trying to have it both ways -- Seila Law has nothing to do with the Social Security Administration yet its confirmed Commissioner is now only its "Acting Commissioner" so you can't apply Seila Law to us isn't going to last forever. This isn't clever. It just underlines the extent of the agency's Seila Law problem. The only solution is for Saul to leave voluntarily or be forced out.
Jan 28, 2021
"Acting" Commissioner?
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13 comments:
OK, let me see, first it was we need a commissioner as soon as possible going without a commissioner is not sustainable and we have to have one, then you get one, but you don't like him and now you want him gone.
So who is the magic commissioner? Who exactly is the Chosen One that will be acceptable and will not get attacked within the hour of being named on this blog? Who?
The Slate article makes strong points. Claimant Reps and ALJs are united on this one.
"This unprecedented move, which may well be illegal, would effectively deny due process to people who have a right to these benefits by allowing political appointees to manipulate the adjudication of claims. It is past time for Biden to fire both of these officials."
This article shows you Saul & Black are on the way out, here is the rationale, it's a matter of timing/days.
Who is afraid to say that claimants should NOT lose their due process rights? Why not support the ALJs on this one? They put their neck on the line with a public vote of no confidence, why are reps slow to support something we all agree on?
If you agree SSA needs new leadership to keep decisions fair then sign the Change.org petition that supports the AALJ & AFGE.
https://www.change.org/helptheSSA
@ 11:21
Not really fair. I disagreed with Astrue on many things. But I never asked for his ouster. This is a Saul issue and more of a Trump thing.
Saul has shown a disdain for the disabled with numerous draconian measures like changing the muscoskeletal listings basically to make it impossible to meet or equal a listing.
He has been draconian to his own SSA employees such as taking away telework when first assigned. And then, he embraced it because he had to due to the pandemic. Saul has shown ZERO leadership skills.
Better Call Saul has shown he is not up for this. I also did not believe Colvin was that good either. That is why she was not nominated.
@11:21
Not my monkey, not my circus.
If the Commissioner is an "acting" Comm. the argument is valid. If Saul got his feelings hurt for his actions, neat. If that discourages a subsequent nominee from accepting the nomination, maybe don't be a jerk and that won't happen.
Saul showed he didn't respect or trust SSA employees when he ended telework for many thousands at his first opportunity.
The blowback was huge from employees and congress, but he and Grace Kim refused to back off until the pandemic forced them to allow telework.
To be fair, I do believe that Saul has learned to respect employees more, and now treats us better than when he first arrived. He has not pushed to end telework again, for example.
Regardless of who is commissioner, they have historically done little work and do little to improve the agency.
Let's be clear. The commissioner job is a political appointment. Period. None of them really do much of anything to improve the agency.
Saul is a terrible and incompetent manager for the agency. He has done nothing to improve the agency. Similar to most of Trump's appointees, he is incapable of handling the job. He simply cant do the job. It is what it is, as a former first lady stated.
Saul and Black lie to the American public. The way they attempt to serve the public is by deception and terrible service. They push employees to the limit and say they can do always do more ( How hard do Saul and Black really work?). The only way the employees can do more is by providing less customer service due to enormous workloads and little staffing. Saul and Black have empowered managers to be dicks. I cannot understand why anyone will want to work at Social Security. If it wasnt for serving the public, I assume employees would not want to work hard anymore. The SSA pisses on employees who work hard and despises them. The less you do, the less nonsense you deal with.
@ 6:16
If telework was so important, then why didn't the Union negotiate it into the contract? Could it be that allowing telework up to the Deputy Commissioners(effectively the Commissioner) gave the Union cover to complain regardless the decision? Union membership was split on whether telework was effective or needed. No matter what was decided by Saul, Union "leadership" would have complained and played the martyr.
@6:16 I agree with 7:10. The union screwed us out of telework. That should have been solidly in the contract. The minute I saw the contract I dropped out of the Union, because I saw where they dropped the ball and what was coming. There is no guarantee telework stays when SSA reopens and it’s still not a guarantee for the life of the contract. It was a terrible strategic mistake by the union and is unforgivable.
lol, if you all knew the first thing about labor law, federal employee union negotiations, and the composition of the FSIP and its parent, the FLRA, you'd know the fix was in re: telework for agencies (not just SSA) during the previous admin.
NTEU got lucky keeping its telework--they didn't dazzle FSIP with better arguments or work harder than AFGE did. Go read the FSIP impasse decision for NTEU telework (and the earlier one re: AFGE's contract/telework). Pretty clear to me NTEU won on the telework issue only because SSA was so stupid and full of hubris that it didn't even bother to toss out a few plausible situations that could occur justifying the dramatic cut when FSIP all but told it that's all it needed to do to win at impasse during the proceedings! Since SSA couldn't even see that telegraphed pass and muster the effort to burp up a pretextual plausible reason, FSIP got mad and handed it to NTEU.
an addendum to my previous comment:
go look up the FLRA (remember: parent of FSIP) decision of NTEU v Dept of Ag Food and Nutrition Service (71 FLRA No. 133). The Trump FLRA said in this decision (April 2020!) that telework is NOT EVEN NEGOTIABLE IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!
Please don't blame your unions re: the loss of telework. The fix was in. There is plenty to be mad at unions about, but getting more telework b/w 2017-2020 was simply impossible from the start.
final addendum:
Yesterday, Biden got 8/10 FSIP (all Trump appointees) members to resign and fired the two holdouts. I imagine he'll also clean house at the parent FLRA, at least to the extent he can.
So, you can go back to blaming the unions for failing to deliver the goods because they will have the friendliest setting for bargaining they've had in some time.
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