Amer Al-Mudallal to Replace Joe Edgell

Amer Al-Mudallal, NTEU Chapter 280’s new President

Joe Edgell is leaving NTEU 280 and EPA HQ to assume a position at EPA Region 10 to be closer to his aging parents.

The NTEU Executive Board met on November 29, 2018 and voted for Executive Vice President Amer Al-Mudallal to assume the President’s role. Amer has previously served with distinction as President of NTEU Chapter 280. Amer’s bio is here.

Joe Edgell, NTEU Chapter 280’s outgoing President

Joe will be sorely missed. Over his 11 years of NTEU activism, and especially in his 5 months as President, he has helped many members and strengthened NTEU at EPA. Whether it was his leadership, lawyering, negotiation skills, grievance-handling, communication skills, or fierce defense of NTEU and its members…. Joe gave us 1000%.

Joe often says that all of the members are the union, not just the officers. He hopes that he leaves EPA Headquarters inspiring employees to join NTEU as members, and participate as stewards and on committees. Joe set the bar high for all of us, and he will be very disappointed if our membership doesn’t step up and increase their involvement and support of NTEU.

Writing Congress

Click here to visit the action page.

The NTEU Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) guarantees NTEU representatives the right to reach out to Congress. Representatives are guaranteed the right to:

• act for a labor organization in the capacity of a representative and the right in that capacity to present the views of the labor organization to … the Congress….

• receive official time to contact members of Congress and their staffs to discuss legislative and related matters affecting the Employer and its employees.

But it’s not only union officials that can reach out to Congress. You also can contact your member of Congress on matters that concern you during your breaks and lunch periods. NTEU makes it easy to do through its congressional action website at action.nteu.org.

You can write Congress about the lack of pay raises to keep up with inflation, the removal of employee rights through the President’s anti-employee executive orders, protecting EPA’s budget, and many other issues. All you need to do is type your zip code, it will automatically locate your member of congress, pre-format a letter you can then edit or send.

Just click here to visit NTEU’s action page now.

OPM Data Breach Lawsuit Update

NTEU continues to press its arguments that the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) violated NTEU members’ constitutional right to informational privacy when it allowed a series of data breaches to occur, failing to protect the personal data of nearly 22 million federal employees. This litigation is an important fight for us. NTEU believes that OPM must answer for breaking its promise to federal employees about keeping our personal information safe from hackers.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed NTEU’s suit on September 19, 2017. The court ruled that NTEU members were not sufficiently injured by the data breaches. NTEU appealed this decision and will file its next brief on August 23, 2018. The Court will then set a date for oral argument.

Budget Update

The start of the 2019 Fiscal Year (FY) is only six weeks away.  The fall funding situation remains unclear with a contentious Supreme Court battle brewing, the mid-term elections approaching, and the President’s past stated opposition to a Continuing Resolution (CR) for FY19.

The House and the Senate passed versions of bills that contain significant differences that need to be resolved before they can be enacted. Neither the House nor the Senate have passed all 12 appropriations bills. If Congress fails to to enact any of these bills prior to October 1st, the government will shut down unless Congress were to pass a CR.  

NTEU will monitor the budget process and work with members of Congress to avoid a government shutdown. However, should one occur, NTEU will fight to ensure that all federal workers receive their paychecks on time.  

NTEU Supports Federal Employees Under Attack

Federal employee rights and benefits are under attack.

The collective bargaining agreement at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) expired. HHS proposed to eliminate 21 entire articles from the contract, including articles governing alternative work schedules, telework, performance appraisals, awards, and transit subsidies. HHS also proposed to exclude over 40 subjects from the grievance procedure. After only 2 ½ days, the HHS "bargaining team" declared an impasse, ending the "bargaining." This dispute will likely come before the Federal Service Impasse Panel, the panel that resolves disputes between federal agencies and unions representing federal employees. The panel's members are appointed by the President.

NTEU is pursuing measures on Capitol Hill, such as filing a bad-faith bargaining unfair labor practice grievance, in addition to the pending executive order lawsuit.

HHS' proposals mirror those that were unilaterally implemented at the Department of Education. Other NTEU represented agencies could be next. 

Trump to Sign Bill Impacting Federal Employees

On Monday, August 13th, President Trump will visit Fort Drum to sign the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019. The bill includes several government-wide personnel provisions. The General Services Administration will extend its pilot telework program until December 31, 2020. The pilot telework program authorizes agencies to pay, with certain restrictions, necessary travel expenses for employees participating in a telework program. Also, agencies will be able to use direct hire authority for college and post-secondary students. This authority allows agencies to fill vacancies in specific occupations, grade levels, and locations when it can be proven that there is a critical hiring need or a severe shortage of candidates. View the text of the bill here. 

Senate Approves a 1.9% Pay Increase for Federal Workers

On August 1st, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved the Financial Services and General Government (FSGG) spending bill for fiscal year 2019. The Senate approved a 1.9% pay increase for federal employees by a vote of 92 to 6. NTEU worked closely with our allies in the Senate to protect the pay increase despite opposition from the White House, which called for a federal employee pay freeze for 2019. NTEU will continue to push to secure a pay increase for 2019 as the bill goes to conference. 

Legislation Introduced to Take Away Employee Rights

Last week, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee met to consider several anti-employee and anti-union bills. The proposed bills will eliminate collective bargaining on Information Technology decisions, will upend the role of the Merit Systems Protection Board in its work to oversee employee appeals, and will hinder effective performance management at federal agencies by both eliminating agency dispute resolution processes and the due process rights, which are the legal procedures that must be followed to prevent harmful or unequal treatment, of federal employees. The Senate introduced bills similar bills.

NTEU strongly opposes all of these measures and will work to block these anti-labor laws from being enacted.  For more information, read the letter NTEU sent to the Committee members expressing our concerns.