From Government Executive:
The Social Security Administration has plans to restore a few key parts of its national agreement with the American Federation of Government Employees.
After months of ongoing discussions, SSA and AFGE reached an agreement on July 25 to reinstate previous levels of official time for union activity, and the union’s use of SSA facilities, that existed in an earlier iteration of the national contract from 2012. ...
And, there are more negotiations still on the table — SSA and AFGE have agreed to reopen six other contract articles, Couture said. The SSA spokesperson added that the agency looks forward to partnering with AFGE in the upcoming contract negotiations, in part, to try to resolve ongoing challenges with staffing and employee satisfaction. ...
Actually, AFGE shouldn't need an election win to get this sort of thing. The problem is that the Republican Party has gone nuts in many ways and one of them is its strident hostility towards federal employee unions. I know the union can be a pain in the neck. I know it can make impossible demands. I know that it is little concerned with service to the public but the Trump Administration policies towards federal employee unions were over the top by almost any standard.
Does anyone know what the 6 articles being reopened are? I didn’t see it in either article.
ReplyDeleteArticle 41 Telework should be one of the 6 articles being reopened.
ReplyDeleteArticles 4, 9, 11, 24, 25, and 30 are being updated.
ReplyDelete6:37 so right, the lines outside offices are not near long enough to discourage people, so even less people addressing it should be the right answer.
ReplyDeleteAgain, the lines were long prior to telework so clearly telework is not the biggest reason for long lines.
DeleteI declined to telework so I’m in the office all day, every day. The issue facing the agency really has less to do with current employees and more to do with new hires. New hires want to work somewhere that has telework. It’s that simple. So, the agency is having an extremely hard time retaining new hires long term. The consequences of this will be higher turnover than in the past. This is bad news for SSA since in a best case scenario, it takes 3 or more years to become an effective and efficient employee. Anecdotally, new hires don’t seem to be sticking around that long. We had 3…one is being fired after 2 years and failing to grasp the basics, one is actively looking for other employment even though they just finished training and the third just started training.
ReplyDelete