11/20/09 Union News

Request for Award Nominations for Union Volunteers

At this year's Annual Union Membership Meeting on Wed. Dec. 2 at 2 p.m. Eastern (with Field Office connections to be announced), the Union Assembly has created a process to recognize individuals who have made vital contributions to our volunteer-run, democratic, representative Union. 

Your nominations are needed to celebrate current or former Union volunteers* who have made unique or exemplary contributions to the Union’s efforts at GAO since the Union was established in September 2007.  The Awards are intended to recognize and encourage current or former Union members who have:

• overcome difficult and significant challenges for the Union,
• gone out of their way to help their colleagues in the bargaining unit,
• volunteered for sometimes thankless Union tasks,
• contributed to team-building within the Union, and
  
• brought innovative approaches or efforts that support the Union.

GAO management releases study on the Performance Appraisal System

GAO has released its evaluation of GAO's Performance Appraisal System (available at this GAO intranet link).  The GAO Union was a stakeholder and provided input and comments throughout the study process.  The report highlighted many fundamental problems with the performance system and how it is implemented. The Union Assembly will be considering how to respond to management, particularly in the master contract negotiations.

Your GAO Union representatives need to hear your opinions about these concerns (and your other concerns) as we prepare our upcoming master contract negotiations, which begin on January 26, 2010.  Please send your thoughts to the Union's Bargaining Committee, at unionquestions@ifpte.org.

TVA’s Engineers Join IFPTE

IFPTE has formed a strategic alliance with an independent union of professionals at the Tennessee Valley Authority, a federal corporation established in 1933 to provide electricity generation and economic development in the Tennessee Valley. Today, TVA is the largest public power company in the United States, covering most of Tennessee and parts of seven other states. It faces challenges in environmental clean-up, energy capacity, and employee-management relations.

TVA’s 2,600-member Engineers Association (EA), formed just four years after TVA, now serves its engineers, scientists, technicians and other professionals. The partnership with IFPTE, EA President Gay Henson said, “provides us with new connections to Washington, to the labor movement, and to other engineers and professionals.”

In announcing the alliance, IFPTE President Greg Junemann pointed also to the ongoing transition in the energy industry overall.  "TVA’s engineers see in IFPTE an organization that can help lobby Congress," he said, "and also understands engineering and power generation issues."

Many of us volunteering with the GAO Union see this development as emblematic of IFPTE’s expanding and dynamic influence. This year 500 professionals at the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation affiliated with IFPTE. And, in addition to GAO’s analysts, IFPTE represents NASA scientists, administrative law judges handling immigration, Medicaid and Social Security cases, researchers at the Library of Congress, and engineers employed by the Army Corps of Engineers. An affiliate of the AFL-CIO, IFPTE represents 85,000 skilled white-collar workers in the public and private sectors nationwide.

For more information, consult the Web sites for IFPTE, www.IFPTE.org, and EA, www.tvaea.com.