Labor officials confident they have votes on initiative for GAO union

Union representatives are confident that they have the votes to form what would be the first guild at the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in its 86-year history.

“We’re going to file for an election with the GAO folks [today],” said Jamie Horwitz, a spokesman for the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE), the AFL-CIO affiliated labor union organizing the campaign.

{mosads} Union representatives have cited changes to the pay-for-performance system and the employees’ classification as reasons for launching a union-organizing campaign. Organizers say that they have received support from a majority of GAO analysts.

 “For strategic reasons we can’t give an exact number [of analysts who support the union],” Horwitz said. “But there are 1,500 analysts and we have the majority in Washington and around the nation [in field offices]. There are more than 750, we can say that much.”

In order to file successfully for the union election, 30 percent of GAO’s 1,500 analysts need to sign on to the effort. Once the election is set, a majority of the GAO officials need to vote yes for the union.

The names of the analysts who sign on to the union effort are kept secret. The vote would also be done on a secret ballot.
Last year, GAO analysts contacted IFPTE, which also represents Congressional Research Service representatives and about 75,000 employees across the U.S. and Canada, to organize a union at the agency. “Band Together” stickers, showing support for the union, can be seen in many office windows throughout the agency.

GAO analysts need the protection of a binding employment contract, a voice in Congress on pay, benefit and retirement issues, and qualified legal representation, according to a website supporting the unionization effort.

Today, IFPTE officials and a number of employees will go to the Personnel Appeals Board (PAB) bearing boxes filled with union-authorization support cards, said Paul Shearon, secretary-treasurer of the IFPTE. An election for union officials could be held in 45 to 90 days, barring any intervention by Comptroller General (CG) David Walker.

“The CG could claim that employees are not eligible because they are managers,” Shearon said. “We see that as a red herring; [analysts] are not managers, not supervisors.”

Analysts in Band II A, the level with a lower pay rate, and Band II B, the level with a higher pay rate, are often indistinguishable, Shearon said. Analysts are not involved in hiring or firing.

Over the past several months, lawmakers have urged Walker to cooperate with union organizers.

“We want to ensure that they are permitted to proceed with their protected self-organizational activities free from interference. Further, once the analysts file their election petition, we urge you [to] work cooperatively with them to ensure that the election is completed expeditiously and in good faith,” a group of 22 House and Senate lawmakers wrote on Feb. 23.
Established in 1921, the GAO has never had a union. But after a restructuring effort took place in early 2006, some employees felt that they did not have enough involvement in the agency’s decisions and questioned the validity of a compensation study used to justify personnel changes.

The GAO used a Watson Wyatt Worldwide compensation study as grounds to deny 17 percent of analysts a cost-of-living adjustment, saying that a number of employees were overpaid. At the same time, the agency separated 1,200 senior analysts into two groups: 800 analysts went into Band II A, while 400 analysts were placed in Band II B.

Shearon said that many employees were upset that they had little involvement in the restructuring effort.

“They were not given the opportunity to actively participate in the process, Shearon said. “These people are actually the watchdog of the U.S. [federal agencies]. Who do you compare them to?”

Walker would not comment yesterday on the petition itself because he had not yet seen it.

“If and when they do file, we will make a comment once we have had an opportunity to review the petition,” Walker said.
At the beginning of April, the agency settled with 12 Band II A employees, promoting them and granting them the pay they would have earned plus interest.

As a result of the settlement, GAO employees began circulating a letter last week urging their colleagues to join together and bring another case before the PAB’s Office of General Counsel.

“We are inviting you to enlist in a movement to restore pay justice at GAO by petitioning for all your rightful back pay and benefits,” the letter reads.

However, only if more than 200 employees enlist in the case will organizers bring the case forward next week and continue the campaign.

“GAO gave the 12 petitioners everything they could request under the restructuring case,” the letter continues. “Now it is our turn to follow in the footsteps of our 12 colleagues who had the courage to challenge GAO’s ‘assertions and claims’ at the PAB.”

One GAO analyst, James Moses, has filed a class-action suit against the GAO, claiming that the agency discriminated based on age.

However, union officials say that employees are enthusiastic about the union and what its creation might mean for the government’s watchdog agency.

“The employees are quite excited about this,” Shearon said. “These employees are going worker to worker, office to office, and cubicle to cubicle [to gain support]. We’ve been marching down this path now for almost a year.”