The Sorry State of Things Will Pass...in About a Year or So
Pros
All of the pros are about to disappear, which is the regressionists' plan. (This is not partisan BS. Look up the James Sherk memo!) Before Commissioner Saul, I would say pros were telework and job security. Oh, and Carolyn Colvin is no longer the Commissioner. The President appointed Andrew Saul who was confirmed (Colvin never was due to partisan games during the Obama Administration.) Incidentally, Saul was arrested for impersonating a police officer in New York once (fact!)
Cons
The most recent contract. Can I just respond to what some people have written here about the unions and the contracts that were recently negotiated? I am so tired of people blaming the unions for the agency’s current “contracts”. People need to get the facts before they spread stuff like that. Google the James Sherk (coincidentally rhymes with jerk) memo. (Not an agency employee, so should be fair game to use his name. He has been in the papers but many people at SSA apparently have never heard of him.) The NY Times and Politico articles about the memo will bring you some clarity. All of what happened with the contract was carefully planned to pit Federal employees against the unions. The Sherk memo outlines the strategy re: getting unions out of Federal workplaces (as well as some business about OSHA needing to regulate the pornographic film industry and ensure that its actors wear condoms – from the great minds now running the show). The President has stacked the labor impasse board with his appointees. All members of the board, which rules on contract disputes between agencies and unions, are Trump appointees. The board has been a rubber stamp for a regressionist agenda. The Union and the agency obviously hit contract impasses. The labor impasse board had already ruled against the Union on many of the contested articles. The choices were these: the Union could have either allowed the remaining articles to be struck down by the board, which definitely would have happened, or accepted some concession regarding official time. Don’t think that the concession wasn’t carefully calculated to further divide employees from their Union, especially in the wake of the Janus decision. Oh, and the agency had the assistance of the President’s Executive Orders, which made it easier to terminate employees, hanging over its head at the time they signed the contract, because the stay on them was about to be lifted. So, what choice did they have? Any delusions about there being choices other than signing the contract are very misinformed. Unions have worked to ensure that workers in all industries where they are permitted receive decent wages and benefits. Right to work states that outlaw agency and union shops pay significant lower wages on average than other states. AFGE isn’t perfect, but agency employees received the benefits of the previous contracts through decades of work by the unions. Many of the provisions in the new contract are barred by other Federal policies and, with work, can and should be overturned once the President is removed from office. That is, if people don’t abandon the labor movement.
