April 21, 2006

Message from the NTEU National President
NTEU Presses For Fair, Competitive Agreement

On March 30, NTEU and NCUA concluded the second full week of negotiations for an initial term collective bargaining agreement. The experience has been enlightening. NCUA is proposing very regressive contract articles that would not only keep NCUA employees from achieving parity with other FIRREA agencies, but would place them squarely behind all federal employees.

NTEU is offering proposals similar to those in place at other FIRREA agencies and which recognize and reward you for the talent and dedication you bring to the job every day. The following is a representative list of issues that the parties are negotiating that will illustrate the differences between our proposals. 

Pay

While employees at other FIRREA agencies receive pay raises each year, NCUA is proposing pay cuts for its frontline employees. NCUA claims that it is “different” than other FIRREA agencies therefore you should be paid less. Yet NCUA management officials receive pay that is the same or higher than their counterparts at other FIRREA agencies. In fact, the Executive Director of NCUA is paid more than the Vice President of the United States.

NTEU has proposed that you receive an immediate 10 percent increase in basic pay; an enlargement of the basic pay “bands” for employees who are bumping up against the maximum; and locality pay based on recommendations by the Federal Salary Council which determines locality pay for all other federal employees.     

Grievance and Arbitration

NCUA is seeking grievance and arbitration rules that would not allow you to grieve the following actions: agency regulations; reassignments, performance evaluations; awards; compensation; adverse actions (suspensions and removals); EEO matters; details; relocation; and travel. Under NCUA’s plan, no employee in the unit would be able to file a grievance challenging an unacceptable performance action, his or her removal from NCUA or a 14-day suspension. There is no other federal agency that excludes such issues from the negotiated grievance process.

Under NTEU’s proposal, you may file grievances—and appeal any denial to an independent third-party arbitrator if need be—over any issue that the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute (Title 5) permits. 

Official Work Site

For decades, NCUA has saved millions of dollars by not having field offices because employees have worked out of their homes. Employees have been paid POV for their travel time from the home work site to credit unions. However, NCUA now seeks to eliminate nearly all payment of POV from the home work site to the credit union, even though it incurs no costs for field offices. The reality is that most examiners have home offices and perform some work at home, and this has greatly benefited the agency, both financially and from an efficiency standpoint. Employees, therefore, should continue to be reimbursed their travel expenses from their home work site to the credit union.

NTEU will insist that the home be designated an official work site, and the employees be reimbursed for travel and compensated for travel time to and from the credit union.

Certification

NCUA is proposing that examiners be required to pass a “Comprehensive Certification Examination” (CCE) to be non-competitively promoted from CU-11 to CU-12.  It also proposes that current Principal Examiners (PE) be required pass the test. Once certified, PEs would be required to pass a recertification exam every three years. Failure to pass the exam would result in the PE being downgraded to the CU-11 position.

For career ladder promotions from CU-11 to CU-12, in addition to passing the CCE, examiners would have to meet other criteria including effectively serving as EIC of at least five team examinations involving credit unions in several categories such as CAMEL 3, 4 or 5 with over $10 million in assets, and serve at least two 30 day details or one 60-day detail in a higher-graded position. Finally, there must be “sufficient work at the higher grade level position” and funds available for the person to be promoted. NCUA proposes that all detail and assignment decisions be solely within its discretion and not subject to review. As such, no CU-11 employee would have recourse if NCUA chose not to assign the employee the work required of her or him to be eligible for a career ladder promotion.

NTEU opposes such a certification process which goes far beyond what any other comparable federal agency imposes on employees. NTEU has also proposed that all management actions be subject to third-party review to ensure fairness in their application. 

Promotions

For non-career ladder promotions NCUA is proposing that management will determine, without any review, how many applicants for promotion will be placed on the Best Qualified (BQ) list and forwarded to the selecting official. If NCUA thinks only one candidate should be on the list even though three or four are in the highest group, it could forward one name to the selecting official.  

NTEU proposes that you be given “first consideration” for vacancies in the bargaining unit; and that the names of the top seven candidates be forwarded to the selecting official for all promotion actions. 

Detail and Reassignment

Management has proposed that detail and reassignment actions be determined solely by management, without the possibility of review. 

NTEU has proposed a volunteer procedure under which qualified employees would be detailed or reassigned based on seniority.     

This reflects the discussions and major disagreements we have had at the table. Unfortunately, NCUA’s punitive proposals indicate a clear lack of respect for you and the work you do every day on its behalf. NTEU has frequently encountered this type of short-sighted thinking and we have always been able to prevail on agencies to treat employees fairly and be accountable for arbitrariness. With your support, this is what we intend to do at NCUA. NCUA management needs to realize that its current approach is going to be more costly in the long run.

There are three more full weeks of bargaining between April 18 and June 16, 2006. I am hopeful that NCUA will appropriately deal with those issues and offer employees a meaningful, fair contract. Further news concerning the negotiations will be provided to you through Bargaining Updates.

In the meantime, if you have any questions about the negotiations, please do not hesitate to e-mail Steve Jennings or Heather Hammes. Both Steve and Heather are on the NTEU Negotiating Team.

Colleen M. Kelley
National President