On September 8, 2020, the employees of OCSPP (more than 1000 people) were notified of an imminent reorganization that would take effect on September 28, 2020—less than 3 weeks away, and concurrent with all the activities of the end of the fiscal year. NTEU represents over nearly 500 employees in OCSPP.
The reorganization was announced with great fanfare through a Microsoft Teams Live presentation at 2:00 pm (EDT), where OCSPP management told employees that the Unions had been informed of (or even involved in) the coming changes. This was not accurate: at 11:00 am (that day) LER provided NTEU with our first notice that a reorganization would be explained to union representatives at a 1:00 pm meeting that day. This notice and that one-hour meeting were the entire extent of NTEU’s knowledge and involvement before the 2:00 announcement and presentation.
Since then, NTEU has been inundated with questions and concerns from our BU members. Scientists have raised serious concerns about certain office structures that may violate basic principles of scientific integrity. Individual employees have been moved involuntarily to positions outside of their existing organizations. Many supervisors have been demoted, while new supervisory vacancies have been created.
In addition to misrepresenting the Unions’ participation in developing the changes, some supervisors have made misstatements about what information the Unions have, even suggesting that we have intentionally withheld information from employees. NTEU has contacted LER multiple times about this, and we have requested that OMS issue a statement to all of OCSPP describing the process they are following, the correct sources of relevant information, and who is responsible for correcting or updating the information.
NTEU has made a demand to bargain the terms of implementing the reorganization. Under the process for mid-term bargaining in our CBA, we have to submit our proposals to management no later than October 7, 2020, even though the reorganization will be in effect for almost two weeks by then. OCSPP senior leadership has promised that October will be a “transition” to the new structure, and we interpret that to mean that they are open to changing parts of the plan, even after they have gone into effect, and will negotiate with us in good faith.
Links: https://intranet.epa.gov/ohr/programs/reorg/index.htm EPA’s reorganization website
https://usepa.sharepoint.com/sites/OCSPP/Pages/Reorganization.aspx Sharepoint site