Erroneous Assumptions
Friday, October 30, 2009
Until I read Frank Ferris' impassioned defense of (b)(1) bargaining on FedSmith recently (See A Guide to Slandering Permissive Bargaining), I was unaware that one could slander a 30-year old piece of legislation. Come to think of it, I'm still not clear on just how that feat would fall within the realm of the doable. ((Editor's Note: Bargaining on "numbers, types, and grades of employees or positions assigned to any organizational subdivision, work project, or tour of duty, or on the technology, methods, and means of performing work" is called "permissive bargaining" because an agency is allowed by law to decide whether to bargain on these subjects with a union that represents agency employees. It is also referred to a (b)(1) bargaining in reference to a statutory citation on this topic. For more on this, see Bargaining in the Permissive Area: What's All the Fuss About?)
What does seem clear, however, is that several assumptions that I would consider erroneous form the foundation for Ferris' arguments.
1. Congress placed permissive bargaining topics in a distinctly separate category for no discernible reason. Obviously, that's not the case. Locking into rigid agreements in these particular areas had created well-recognized problems in the private sector (think "featherbedding") well before this Statute emerged. It is clear that Congress wished agencies to tread carefully in dealing with these particular topics in order to avoid creating similar problems in the federal service.
2. Static is as good as—yea, better than—flexible when it comes to managing people, processes, and technology. Offhand, I can't think of a single instance in which it would better serve an agency's interests to have its tongue frozen to a flagpole of rigid, static approaches in dealing with expanding missions, changing budgets, and fluctuating workloads. Flexibility is obviously essential in meeting mission requirements in a perpetually changing environment.
3. A bottomless pit of resources is available to fund doing business in the most expensive way possible. This is clearly not the case any longer—if it ever was—and is likely to become an ever more distant dream as national deficits deepen. The inescapable fact is that one of the primary benefits of rigid schedules and crew sizes is that they maximize earning opportunities.
No mystery as to why that would be desirable from a union perspective. But it's clearly not the best use of limited resources either. Granted, a union is simply doing its job in seeking to maximize the income of those it represents.
But an agency is responsible for accomplishing the public business effectively and efficiently--not operating as a mini-stimulus hub, intent on spending as many dollars as possible. Insisting on the adoption of and adherence to inefficient uses of the limited dollars and employees available to agencies can only result in reduced mission effectiveness—always a tough sell with the public.
4. Agency managers are incapable of exercising sound judgment in assigning employees. This is the message I found implicit in Ferris' lament concerning the assignment of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Officers to meet private aircraft. What I understood him to be saying is that CBP managers have exposed those officers to unreasonable risks by not assigning more of them to meet such flights.
What got left out of this dramatic tale was that CBP managers determine the necessary staffing to meet flights based on a careful analysis of advance information regarding them—including a flight's point of origin, the record of the operator, and its security status. They have done so since 2001, without—to my knowledge—a single mishap. On those flights where the facts indicate increased risk, CBP managers have routinely assigned more officers to those tasks.
In short, this group of agency managers has been doing what they are paid to do; i.e., exercising judgment in determining—within the framework of existing facts, circumstances, and mission demands—how best to deploy their limited human assets. I believe it wrong to assume that managers are universally incapable of exercising judgment, or that rigidly applied assignment rules would work better.
5. Employees' interest in their paychecks automatically supersedes their commitment to mission accomplishment. Anyone who has been a federal employee knows that the overwhelming majority of them don't work just for a paycheck—though that's certainly a nice thing to have—but rather, out of a deep and genuine commitment to the accomplishment of the agency's mission.
That was certainly the case at the agencies I worked for—including the Department of Navy and U.S. Customs and Border Protection—and I am certain is just as true for those plugging along at the many other, often under-appreciated agencies for which feds work.
In relentlessly pushing for work rules that may be to employees' personal benefit—for example, boosting overtime earnings—but could operate to the detriment of agency mission accomplishment, I believe some union leaders have misread and seriously underestimated the motivation that drives most federal employees.
The Bottom Line: I would recommend that Mr. Ferris and others involved in the development and negotiation of work rules in the federal environment—including agency officials—re-examine their assumptions in light of the primary objective; i.e., providing effective service to the American people.
And then proceed accordingly.
© 2009 D.K. Reischl. Article may be reproduced and/or distributed in its current form if the copyright and contact information is retained intact.
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