GovExec.com Workforce Week - August 30, 2004
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August 30, 2004
* Critics: Details about new Pentagon personnel system are scarce
* Medicare officials seek to boost use of discount drug cards
* Border agency kicks off courtesy training
* Investigators recommend criminal charges in Abu Ghraib prison scandal
* Unions seek to force DHS to keep negotiating on personnel rules
* Panel: Prison abuses reveal 'string of failures'
* Pay problems plague Army Reserve
* Border and customs officials cite low morale, security gaps
* This week's column: Pay and Benefits Watch
* Quote of the week
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You're in charge of HR. Your agency has just been through an A-76 competitive
sourcing process. What should you be doing?
{ Link:
http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;10311397;5622871;d?http://www.pivotal-insight.com/hr-report.php
}
{Image: Brought to you by Pivotal-Insight}
In-sourcing or Outsourcing?
Find out what federal HR executives are - and can be - doing to help make competitive
sourcing successful for their organizations.
Follow this link - { Link:
http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;10311397;5622871;d?http://www.pivotal-insight.com/hr-report.php
}
http://www.pivotal-insight.com/hr-report.php - to learn more.
_____
1. Critics: Details about new Pentagon personnel system are scarce
By Shawn Zeller
A coalition of labor unions meeting with Defense Department officials to discuss the
new National Security Personnel System are blasting Pentagon leaders for refusing to
negotiate with them or to share information about plans for the new system.
"We're just meeting for the sake of meeting and have been since ... January," said Ron
Ault, president of the metal trade department of the AFL-CIO. "They haven't shared
anything with us."
According to union leaders, the Pentagon has told them that the purpose of the three
meetings held since January is to gather employee input, not to negotiate the design
of the new system. Leaders from 35 different unions, who have joined forces under the
United DoD Workers Coalition, expressed their disgruntlement during two days of
meetings with Defense and Office of Personnel Management officials at a hotel outside
Washington, D.C., on Wednesday and Thursday.
Full story: { Link: http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0804/082604sz1.htm }
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0804/082604sz1.htm
_____
2. Medicare officials seek to boost use of discount drug cards
By Marilyn Werber Serafini, National Journal
The temporary discount drug cards created under the new Medicare law can save senior
citizens as much as 18 percent off retail prices on brand-name drugs, and 65 percent
off national average prices for generic drugs, boasts Mark McClellan, Medicare's
administrator. Moreover, if seniors switch some of their brand-name drugs to generics,
the savings can be as great as 92 percent off retail prices. The cards cost $30 a year
at most, and some are free.
So, if the card is such a no-brainer, then why aren't seniors pushing their way to the
front of the line? Why the slow uptake?
At the end of July, two months after the cards took effect, 4 million Medicare
beneficiaries had a card, out of 33 million eligible people. And only 1.7 million had
signed up on their own, while the other 58 percent had been enrolled automatically by
their Medicare HMOs. About 1 million people were getting the $600 federal subsidy
available to low-income beneficiaries, even though 7.2 million were eligible because
their incomes fell below cutoff levels ($12,569 for individuals and $16,862 for
couples). Even though such eye-opening savings are available, finding the best card is
difficult, and many angry seniors refuse to try the system out.
Full story: { Link: http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0804/082704nj1.htm }
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0804/082704nj1.htm
_____
3. Border agency kicks off courtesy training
By Chris Strohm
Customs and border officials at U.S. ports of entry will receive more training on how
to be professional and courteous under a program being launched in response to some
"isolated incidents of rude and hostile conduct," Customs and Border Protection
Commissioner Robert Bonner said Thursday.
Union representatives, however, immediately blasted the program as being misdirected
and not addressing the concerns raised in a survey released this week reporting that
front-line border personnel do not have the tools, training and resources they need to
protect the country from potential terrorists.
"We can be professional and courteous while at the same time aggressively perform our
counterterrorism task," Bonner said during a press conference announcing theCBP
Professionalism Initiative.
Full story: { Link: http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0804/082604c1.htm }
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0804/082604c1.htm
_____
4. Investigators recommend criminal charges in Abu Ghraib prison scandal
By Katherine McIntire Peters
Army investigators are recommending that criminal charges be filed against 23 soldiers
and four contract employees for their role in abusing prisoners at the Abu Ghraib
prison complex outside Baghdad between July 2003 and February of this year.
Investigators additionally recommended that six soldiers and two contract employees be
charged with failing to report abuse they knew had occurred.
The charges would be in addition to those already pending against seven military
police soldiers.
The investigators documented 44 cases of abuse, ranging from physical assault to one
incident where soldiers used dogs to terrorize two adolescents in a contest to try to
make them urinate and defecate. According to the report, which was released Wednesday:
"At the extremes were the death of a detainee in [another government agency's]
custody, an alleged rape committed by a U.S. translator and observed by a female
soldier, and the alleged sexual assault of an unknown female."
Full story: { Link: http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0804/082504kp1.htm }
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0804/082504kp1.htm
_____
5. Unions seek to force DHS to keep negotiating on personnel rules
By Shawn Zeller
The National Treasury Employees Union wants congressional leaders to put pressure on
Homeland Security Department managers to continue bargaining with union officials over
the structure of the department's new personnel system.
The request came in a letter sent just days after NTEU and the American Federation of
Government Employees charged that DHS management short-circuited a congressionally
mandated "meet-and-confer" period designed to mediate differences between union and
management on a DHS-proposed design for the new system.
DHS officials responded that they had already extended the meet-and-confer period
beyond its originally scheduled end date.
Full story: { Link: http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0804/082504sz1.htm }
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0804/082504sz1.htm
_____
You're in charge of HR. Your agency has just been through an A-76 competitive
sourcing process. What should you be doing?
{ Link:
http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;10311397;5622871;d?http://www.pivotal-insight.com/hr-report.php
}
{Image: Brought to you by Pivotal-Insight}
In-sourcing or Outsourcing?
Find out what federal HR executives are - and can be - doing to help make competitive
sourcing successful for their organizations.
Follow this link - { Link:
http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;10311397;5622871;d?http://www.pivotal-insight.com/hr-report.php
}
http://www.pivotal-insight.com/hr-report.php - to learn more.
_____
6. Panel: Prison abuses reveal 'string of failures'
By Katherine McIntire Peters
An independent panel created by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to review military
detention operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo found widespread abuses, but
no evidence of a policy of abuse promulgated by senior officials or military
authorities.
"Abuses of varying severity occurred at differing locations under differing
circumstances and context. They were widespread and, though inflicted on only a small
percentage of those detained, they were serious both in number and in effect. No
approved procedures called for or allowed the kinds of abuses that in fact occurred,"
the report found. "Still, the abuses were not just the failure of some individuals to
follow known standards, and they are more than the failure of a few leaders to enforce
proper discipline. There is both institutional and personal responsibility at higher
levels."
The consequences of the abuses have been enormous, the panel noted, and have had a
"chilling effect" on interrogations and intelligence gathering in the war on
terrorism. It is critical that all federal agencies adapt to new realities far
different from those of the Cold War, and further define their policies regarding the
status and treatment of detainees, the panel noted in its report.
Full story: { Link: http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0804/082404kp1.htm }
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0804/082404kp1.htm
_____
7. Pay problems plague Army Reserve
By David McGlinchey
A significant percentage of Army Reserve soldiers experience some form of pay problems
after they are called up to active duty, according to a new Government Accountability
Office study.
The Army Reserve's pay system is "so error-prone, cumbersome and complex that neither
[the Defense Department] nor, more importantly, Army Reserve soldiers themselves,
could be reasonably assured of timely and accurate payments," the report (GAO-04-911)
said.
GAO's study found that the majority of pay errors resulted in overpayments. The survey
covered eight Army Reserve units and 348 soldiers. Of those, 95 percent -- 332
soldiers -- experienced some form of pay irregularity between August 2002 and January
2004.
Full story: { Link: http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0804/082404d1.htm }
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0804/082404d1.htm
_____
8. Border and customs officials cite low morale, security gaps
By Chris Strohm
A majority of border and customs officials surveyed earlier this month by the American
Federation of Government Employees said they are demoralized and not getting the full
support they need to protect the country, according to a new report released last week.
Sixty percent of officials surveyed said they have very low or somewhat low morale,
while 64 percent said they are not satisfied or are only somewhat satisfied with the
tools, training and support they have been given by the Homeland Security Department
to fight terrorism. The survey, sponsored by AFGE, the National Border Patrol Council
and the National Homeland Security Council, questioned 250 Border Patrol agents and
250 Customs and Border Protection officers.
"We are here today to give our nation's policymakers, lawmakers and all Americans a
message: The war on terror is in danger of being lost at the borders, the airports and
the seaports," Charles Showalter, president of AFGE's National Homeland Security
Council, said in releasing the survey.
Full story: { Link: http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0804/082304c1.htm }
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0804/082304c1.htm
_____
9. This week's column: Pay and Benefits Watch
Flexible Rollover
A senior lawmaker wants employees with flexible healthcare spending accounts to keep
unspent money at the end of each year.
Full column: { Link: http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0804/082604pb.htm }
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0804/082604pb.htm
_____
10. Quote of the Week:
"DHS management is refusing to come back to the table and finish the discussions."
-- Colleen Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, calling for
more negotiations on { Link:
http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=29325&dcn=todaysnews }
Homeland Security personnel reform.
_____
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process.
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http://www.govexec.com/mailbag.cfm
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