SFLERP Sponsors LR/ER Training
Dallas, Texas - September 16 - 19
SFLERP is sponsoring an intensive 4-day training opportunity on
Federal labor and employee relations to be held September 16 - 19, 2008, in Dallas, Texas. 
Click here for Program Information. 
Click here for the Registration Form.

SFLERP Sponsors One-Day training on
Appraisal under 5 USC Chapter 43
in Washington, DC. Sept. 24
Click here for Information
Click here for Registration Form

SFLERP Celebrates 35 Years of Service

Flaws in Pay-for-Performance Systems Should Be Addressed Before Expansion

Nominations for SFLERP Board

Susan Anderson Receives SFLERP Lifetime Achievement Award

DC Chapter Meeting & Elections

BNA Books This Quarter

SFLERP Members Speaking in Ohio

Looking for A Few Good Writers....

SFLERP Celebrates 35 Years of Service
Over 130 participants joined SFLERP at the 35th Anniversary Symposium on April 24-25, 2008, to attend a variety of workshops and the Opening Plenary on “Pay for Performance.”  Attendees also gave a standing ovation to longtime member Susan Anderson who received the Society’s Lifetime Achievement Award.  Her remarks are published later below.  Also, don’t miss the review of the opening session published by BNA, which is reprinted under the next heading.

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Flaws in Pay-for-Performance Systems Should Be Addressed Before Expansion

By Laura D. Francis
While moving away from the General Schedule and toward alternative personnel systems can be good for federal employees, both agency and union representatives April 24 acknowledged that the kinks in current pay-for-performance systems should be worked out before expanding them throughout the federal government.  The GS system has "outlived its usefulness," Internal Revenue Service Human Capital Officer Robert Buggs told the Society of Federal Labor and Employee Relations Professionals at its annual symposium. The system's method of automatic pay increases "does nothing more than reward longevity," and "I don't think that's the way you run a business," he said.
    National Treasury Employees Union Director of Legislation Maureen Gilman said that "NTEU has actually been interested in alternative pay systems," but she disagreed with Buggs' characterization of the GS system.  Pay increases under the General Schedule are not automatic, Gilman noted, and aspects such as locality pay do consider "merit and market sensibilities." In addition, she said, there are ways to provide incentives to employees to perform well. Gilman said the problem has not been the lack of flexibilities, but rather the money to fund them.  NTEU's concern with pay-for-performance, particularly in the Bush administration's proposed Working for America Act, is that "it's a zero sum game. For somebody to get more, somebody else has got to get less." A system where one employee's success means another cannot receive the incentive tends to encourage competition among workers rather than teamwork, she said.
   Richard Giacolone, a commissioner with the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, who moderated the session, added, "Federal systems should be more like the private sector," which largely reaches collective bargaining agreements with pay systems more closely resembling the GS system than pay-for-performance.

Pay-for-Performance at IRS
Buggs, whose agency has had a pay-for-performance system for managerial employees for several years, said that results of the system have not been entirely negative. In fact, he said, one problem has been that the "vast majority" of IRS employees are not covered by the system, which is "an inconsistency that we really need to deal with."
The system, which covers some 10,000 senior-level, departmental, and front-line managers throughout the agency--which has a total of 104,000 employees--rates managers on operating plans linked to the agency's strategic plans.  The system aligns employees' contributions with IRS's overall business and its bottom line in order for the agency to meet business results, Buggs explained.
    He said that while some performance measures are standardized in each appraisal, employees' performance plans should match their job duties, and so the appraisals also have tailored measures that "get to the specific duties of that individual."
   He also noted that managers' performance ratings did not change significantly after implementation of pay-for-performance. Buggs estimated that about 15 percent of managers are rated as exceeding expectations, 50 percent meet expectations, and about 1 percent are rated as below fully successful.
    Buggs added that IRS has performance review boards that look at performance ratings to determine if they accurately reflect the employee's contribution. Rating managers may be asked to re-examine their decisions or provide supporting documentation, he said.

Expansion of Pay-for-Performance
Gilman stressed that, if IRS and other agencies continue to move away from the GS system, "you must be able to collectively bargain like they do in the private sector. ... That has always been our bottom line."   But "the biggest issue," according to Gilman, is that "we just don't see where the successes have been" in current pay-for-performance systems. In addition, she said, flexibility has been touted as a goal, but the goals of any such system should relate to attaining a talented workforce and achieving the agency's mission. NTEU has not seen results on those kinds of goals, she said.  "I really think that with a new administration ... there will have to be a review" of pay-for-performance before it is expanded, Gilman said. Any new pay system must be fair, credible, and transparent and include the views of the employees themselves when being developed, she said.
   Gilman added that "there are a lot of things that are really hard to measure," such as performance of knowledge-based positions. Systems capping the number of employees that can receive a certain performance rating have been a significant issue, she said.  Buggs agreed that caps are a "huge, huge problem," but emphasized that "it is the responsibility of every manager and supervisor to assess performance correctly."

Reproduced with permission from Government Employee Relations Report, Vol. 46, No. 2253 (Apr.  29, 2008), pp. 505-506. Copyright 2008 by The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. (800-372-1033) http://www.bna.com

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Nominations for SFLERP Board

SFLERP will hold elections in August for three vacancies for General Board positions.  Positions will become vacant due to term expirations for one representative for each of our constituencies: labor, management and neutral.  Terms of office are two years and Board positions are elected on a rotating basis.  Please consider running for office by submitting a brief biography in paragraph form to sflerp@sflerp.org by August 15.

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Susan Anderson Receives SFLERP Lifetime Achievement Award

Longtime SFLERP member Susan Anderson was presented with the 2008 Lifetime Achievement Award at the Society's 35th Anniversary Symposium held April 24-25, 2008.  SFLERP President Abbot Kominers presented the award.  Below are Ms. Anderson's remarks.

I am truly honored to have my name added to the list of dedicated public servants to whom the society has presented the lifetime achievement award.   I would like to thank the national board for selecting me for this award.  When I was told that the vote was unanimous, I demanded a recount.

Those of you who have known me for many years may think that my experience with federal sector labor relations began when I started working for the IRS as a labor relations specialist.  Actually, the truth is my exposure to the federal sector labor relations world began in 1969 when I filed an employee grievance with the Department of Defense.  My parents had taught me that there's an important distinction between having the right to do and doing the right thing.  I felt that the right thing was not being done. So I requested representation from the local union and filed a grievance. I’m happy to report that with the union’s assistance and management’s cooperation, the grievance was satisfactorily resolved. 

More importantly though, I believe that experience provided me early in my federal career with a respect for the role that each side plays, with the need to be an effective advocate for one’s side, and with the belief that a professional relationship can survive difficult  situations.   When I subsequently began my career with the IRS in 1970, I soon learned about the challenges presented to management, union, and third party representatives in our efforts to effectively administer the federal sector labor management relations program.  I recall a period of particularly spirited term negotiations between national IRS and national NTEU.  I had called one of my IRS colleagues and asked how the negotiations were going.  He said “it’s not going well.  There’s a lot of heated argument, name-calling, and totally unreasonable positions being taken.  And that’s just the management team!” 

While continuing to serve as a representative of and advocate for IRS management, I became increasingly interested in how parties, who might otherwise view themselves as opponents, could create a better understanding of and appreciation or their respective interests, needs and concerns.  That’s when to my great satisfaction, I discovered the Society of Federal Labor and Employee Relations Professionals.   As I attended national SFLERP activities, I became convinced that the tripartite composition of the society was a unique conduit for effective training and relationship building among the three sectors.  This belief resulted in my having the honor of organizing and serving as the founding president of the Atlanta, Georgia, Chapter of SFLERP in 1977.  

In the early 1980’s, I had the privilege of being elected as a Management member of the national board.  I thank those who believed in me then and those who have continued to give me the opportunity to serve in that capacity.  I have been inspired by and greatly enjoyed working with my colleagues on the board.  Most importantly, it is you whom we serve.  It is the individual members of and participants in the activities of the society that make this organization successful.

As we celebrate the 35th anniversary of SFLERP, thank you to all who have given dedicated service to and support of the goals of our unique organization.

To Paco, to my fellow board members past and present, and to each of you, I thank you with deepest appreciation and challenge you to continue to bring innovative solutions to complex problems.  Our journey is not yet done.  Our call to public service is not yet over.  Thank you.

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DC Chapter Meeting & Elections

The SFLERP DC Chapter will meet again on Tuesday, September 16, to hear Arbitrator Michael Wolf discuss “Religious Disputes and Rights in the Federal Sector Workplace.”  Monthly meetings are held at the US Department of Education Training Center located at 400 Maryland Ave., SW, WDC.   Attendees bring their own lunch bags or purchase it from the DoEd cafeteria. Attendees are charged $5 for members and $8 for nonmembers to cover administrative expenses.  We thank Leslie Harris for arranging our the use of the space.
   Later in the summer, the chapter will be conducting elections for its three officers. Officer positions rotate annually among the three membership constituencies. The presidency rotates to neutral, vice-presidency to labor and treasury to management. Traditionally the positions rotate up the ladder so Elliot Shaller, the current Vice President, has agreed to run for President.  We are still in need of candidates to run for Vice President (Labor) and Treasurer (Management).  The responsibilities for Vice President include seeking speakers for the monthly luncheon meetings and receiving RSVPs from attendees. The Treasurer is responsible for collecting money at the meetings and keeping track of the chapter's bank account. Time commitments are usually 1-3 hours per month.  Please consider running for any of the positions. A brief bio should be sent to sflerp@sflerp.org no later than August 15.

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BNA Books This Quarter

BNA Books has added a new book this quarter. Society Members may order BNA books through SFLERP and take 30% off the listed price below, plus shipping and handling charges.  BNA will only honor the discount when received directly from SFLERP.  For a Discount Form call SFLERP at 703-685-4130.  Please note that BNA has increased its shipping charges to $12 for the first book and $6 for each additional book. A 2-volume book counts as two books for shipping charges purposes.

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SFLERP Members Speaking in Ohio

SFLERP Members Marvin J. Feldman, Mitchell Goldberg, Dennis Minni, M. David Vaughn and Alan Miles Ruben are speaking at a one-day program on “Arbitration Developments 2008” to be held Thursday, August 28, 2008.  The program, sponsored by the Ohio State Bar Association, will take place in Cleveland, Ohio, and has been approved for 6.5 CLE hours of credit.  Topics include “Employment Arbitration,”  “Discharge, Discipline and Just Cause,” “Writing the Opinion and Award,” “The Hearing, Prehearing and Posthearing Motions,” and “So You Want to be an Arbitrator?” among others.  Call the bar at 800-232-7124 or visit the website at www.ohiobar.org for more information.

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Looking for A Few Good Writers....

Send us an essay, an article, a paper, a press release, news about you...  Deadline for the next issue of the SFLERP Reporter is September 5.  Email it to sflerp@sflerp.org.