Legislative Update - August 2, 2013... To begin your weekend: The House declared the week of July 29-August 1, Stop Abuse of Government Week and scheduled votes on a number of anti-federal employee bills. NTEU opposed several of the bills which ultimately passed the House. Wednesday, July 31, the House passed H.R.2565 which would require that IRS employees who undertake official actions with respect to a taxpayer for purposes of personal gain or political purpose be terminated from employment as part of Section 1203 of the IRS Reform and Restructuring Act, which limits due process protections afforded to other federal employees. The House approved this bill by voice vote despite the fact that we repeatedly pointed out to members of Congress that laws are already in place that prohibit and punish such actions. NTEU will continue to aggressively oppose this and similar legislation. The House had also been set to consider three other bills Wednesday under suspension of the rules, but in a late day move, decided to roll the three bills into one new bill and bring that bill to the floor yesterday afternoon. The three bills folded into the new H.R.2879 included the following pieces of legislation: • H.R.2711 which provides that every official interaction by any executive branch employee, whether by telephone or in person, shall be allowed to be recorded by the other party. And in certain circumstances, these executive branch employees must notify the other party of their right to record, or be subject to disciplinary action. • H.R.1541 caps the total amount of monetary awards, including merit based performance awards that executive branch employees can earn in a year at 5% as long as sequestration remains in effect. Very few federal employees receive awards that equal 5% in a year; however, it makes no sense for Congress to prevent agencies from rewarding superior performance or taking steps to ensure that they can retain those employees critical to accomplishing their missions. • H.R.2579 would allow Senior Executives to have their pay withheld when put on administrative leave even though no findings of wrongdoing have been finally and officially determined against them. This bill applies only to Senior Executives; however, NTEU opposed it because it could easily be expanded to cover all federal employees. As you can see, the time to stop taking action is NEVER! Visit the Legislative Action Center to make your voice heard! Have a great weekend, everyone! nteu.org/UnionOffice/LegislativeIssues/
Posted on: Fri, 02 Aug 2013 22:47:04 +0000
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