NTEU Chapter 280’s officers learned from a press report that Nicole Patterson, Acting Director of the Labor and Employee Relations Division, sent (and publicized) a letter to Cathie McQuiston of AFGE (National) and Gary Morton, President of National Council of AFGE #238, accusing them of making “false accusations [that] have negatively affected employee morale and led to a loss in productivity.” This public shaming of our AFGE union colleagues for daring to send letters to the Administrator asking him to let the unions participate in developing the agency’s reopening process prompted our Chapter President, Amer Al-Mudallal, to send an email to Ms. Patterson supporting AFGE’s concerns and joining in their call for EPA management to allow union representatives to participate in the planning process, rather than giving us final procedures that are already being followed at multiple EPA locations. Here is the text of that email in full:
A Message from NTEU Chapter 280
Monday, July 06, 2020
Dear Ms. Patterson,
NTEU Chapter 280 is disappointed to learn through a news report of your letter, dated June 24, 2020, to Cathie McQuiston and Gary Morton of AFGE in which you stated that AFGE has made “false accusations towards EPA leadership and management” that have “negatively affected employee morale and led to a loss in productivity.” NTEU supports AFGE and shares its opinion of the communication EPA has provided to employees and their unions during the COVID pandemic.
Your letter stated that “AFGE accused the agency of not discussing or bargaining the agency’s reopening plans with AFGE, and not being transparent about the gating criteria it is using to make decisions on the reopening of facilities,” and called the accusations “completely untrue.” Unfortunately, NTEU has the same perspective as AFGE. NTEU National President Anthony Reardon has written several letters to Administrator Wheeler since March asking him to consult and work with NTEU representatives on the measures necessary to protect employees in response to the global health crisis, and Chapter 280 has requested information and submitted multiple questions with little or no response.
In particular, NTEU is disappointed with EPA’s claim that, “Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and prior to the reopening of any facility, we held seven briefings with AFGE and our other unions to discuss the agency’s status and plans for reopening.” Between March of this year and the date of your letter, LER has provided five (5) “briefings,” most of which provided no information and no responses to questions from union participants.
March 19, 2020 (30 minutes) The only information that was provided was the directive from OMB and OPM that all agencies must maximize telework to reduce public exposure to the deadly coronavirus. Union representatives asked many questions because simply telling all employees to work at home was inconsistent with many CBA provisions. No answers were provided.
April 8, 2020 (45 minutes) This briefing followed a letter to Administrator Wheeler (April 2, 2020) from Anthony Reardon complaining that no response had been made to Amer Al-Mudallal’s e-mail to Donna Vizian (March 27, 2020), which complained that no response had been made to Anthony Reardon’s letter to Administrator Wheeler (March 12, 2020). No substantive information was provided to the unions, and no responses were provided to questions asked at the first briefing.
April 22, 2020 (60 minutes) On April 20, 2020, OMB issued a memorandum directing
agencies to begin making plans to return employees to their offices, in spite of the fact that the pandemic continued to spread virtually unchecked nationwide. The briefing only informed the unions of the memorandum, and that the agency would develop a plan pursuant to the memorandum.
May 21, 2020 (30 minutes) While the purpose of this meeting was purportedly to brief
unions on the agency’s reopening plan, LER did not provide unions with plans. On the same day, Administrator Wheeler announced that three regional offices had started the reopening process, even though no plan had been provided to either the unions or the affected employees.
June 3, 2020 (60 minutes) On May 27, 2020, you provided NTEU with formal notice
that the agency had begun to implement its final reopening plan (attached to the notice).
On July 1, 2020, Denise Castro provided a briefing to NTEU regarding agency plans for reopening office at headquarters. However, as acknowledged at that briefing, the agency has no plans or procedures yet for Phase 3, even though employees would be required to return to their offices and regular work schedules. The 14-day time frames for possibly progressing through phases has caused major anxiety for employees who are not comforted by messages from the Administrator promising to “consider” availability of mass transit and schools or childcare resources. It has been difficult enough for employees to manage the complex needs of work and family while teleworking; the idea of trying to maintain that balance while commuting to and from the office and coming into contact with innumerable potential carriers of the virus is utterly terrifying.
In addition, unnecessary exposure to the virus is no small concern. Even now, management continually states that its top priority is protecting the health and safety of its employees, but the reopening plan does not include a single point where a manager will consider whether any employee’s job actually requires physical presence at the office or workplace for the successful performance of duties. The April 20, 2020 OMB memorandum began with a call to “ramp back up government operations to the maximum extent possible, as local conditions warrant.” It directed agencies to develop plans that “account for agency personnel and facility requirements when determining service levels and telework posture to meet their specific mission needs.” Nothing in any of EPA’s plans bears any relation to whether an employee is successfully performing the tasks that are tied to EPA’s “specific mission needs.”
Finally, your letter accused AFGE of causing “a loss in productivity.” However, every senior manager, including Administrator Wheeler, has expressed nothing but praise and admiration for the massive success achieved by EPA employees working almost exclusively by remote access for over three months. If you would make such accusations publicly, I would hope that you are prepared to give specific factual information to the employees’ representatives in a cooperative spirit of solving problems, rather than fomenting them. I agree with what you said in your letter that “communication and cooperation are paramount” in these difficult times. NTEU is looking forward to negotiating the reopening of headquarters offices with EPA, and I hope that we can do that with the goals of good communication and cooperation in mind.
Amer Al-Mudallal, President
NTEU Chapter 280