President Holway and SEIU leaders met with Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis on Tuesday, April 14, 2009. Secretary Solis assured the group that she intended to change the way the department operates with respect to ensuring workers—and not solely businesses interests and concerns—are adequately addressed. The Secretary talked about ensuring that the department focuses adequate attention on OSHA enforcement.
NAGE National President David J. Holway met Thursday at the Pentagon with newly confirmed Department of Defense Deputy Secretary William J. Lynn. President Holway was joined by several other top labor leaders, including AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, Metal Trades President Ron Ault, NFFE President Rick Brown, and several others.
The key issue addressed at the meeting is was NSPS; specifically, whether NSPS should be improved or revoked. "I spoke plainly and honestly to Deputy Secretary Lynn and reported that the NSPS program is a total disaster and an utter failure," said President Holway. "I told him that the program is unfair to workers, is demoralizing and non-transparent, and should be scrapped altogether. This program just can't be fixed; it needs to go."
At the meeting, President Holway reiterated NAGE members' major concerns about NSPS, including:
•Insufficient safeguards in place to ensure fairness of evaluation system.
•System allows for excessive management bias when it comes to evaluating employees.
•Allocation of bonuses is not fairly distributed.
Supervisors and employees are in the same pay pool which results in supervisors receiving higher evaluations in order to receive larger bonuses allocated for the pool. When bonuses and shares were paid out at Scott AFB, only high-ranking civilians in the NSPS chain received the most shares and large bonuses.
Deputy Secretary Lynn reported that an independent group, working with NAGE and other unions, would be conducting an analysis of NSPS to come to a final determination of its fate. The Obama administration has also indicated that a final resolution to the question of NSPS is a top priority.
Additional Union Brief
The deadline for college scholarship applications is May 15th, Union Members with children attending college for the 2009 school year should download the application and send it in. Previous Alert was listed on the website for the Union Members to see in January 2009. These are the scholarships that are still open until May 15th Deadline
•The $1,000 Edward G. Gillooly Journalism Scholarship honors the late Ed Gillooly who was devoted to honoring working people through journalism. One scholarship is awarded annually.
•The $1,000 Marc Lawson Criminal Justice Scholarship honors longtime IBPO member Marc Lawson for his lifelong service to the American public through law enforcement. One scholarship is awarded annually.
•The NAGE Scholarships program awards 50 scholarships in the amount of $500 each. Scholarships are chosen in a random drawing from among all applications received.