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Patent and Trademark Office employees who cannot type have two years to learn before the agency stops hiring professional typists to assist them, the Federal Service Impasses Panel ruled recently.

As part of an effort to phase out obsolete administrative procedures, the PTO has announced that it will stop providing patent examiners with professional typists. The agency is also introducing new computer software. Patent examiners must use the new software, which is based on Microsoft Word, to communicate with patent applicants.

But the Patent Office Professional Association, a union with roughly 3,500 members, claims that these administrative changes will prevent about 100 patent examiners from completing their work. According to the union, these patent examiners are mostly older workers who are nearing retirement, and are invaluable to PTO because of their vast experience.

"If you ask someone at the end of his government career to learn to type, you're in essence pushing them out of federal service," said Ronald Stern, president of the Patent Office Professional Association. "We've had word processors for more than a decade now. The people who want to learn to type, have, and the others who haven't learned, never will."

But the union requested that PTO give patent examiners who can't type three years to learn and provide examiners who used typists prior to July 1, 2002 those services for the next three years. The union also asked that PTO to provide typing courses to those employees who need them and give examiners at least six months to switch over to the new software, maintaining Word Perfect software for at least three years.

PTO offered to provide patent examiners with typists for another two years and training for those who need it, but said the transition to the new software must take place immediately.

"With respect to the phase-out of typists, the two-year period represents a very generous learning curve for those employees who cannot type," PTO told the Federal Service Impasses Panel. "For those examiners who simply have not been typing their documents because they believe that part of the status of being a professional is having someone else do their typing for them, guaranteeing typist services for three years is not justified."

PTO also noted that the transition to the new software should not require six months, since the software mostly requires examiners to use a "combination of pointing and clicking a mouse to select [text]."

In a May 9, 2003 decision, the Federal Service Impasses Panel ruled in favor of PTO, writing that "on balance, the [agency's] final offer package provides the most reasonable approach" for handling the transition to new administrative procedures.

Commerce Department Patent and Trademark Office v. Patent Office Professional Association, Federal Service Impasses Panel (03 FSIP 018), May 9, 2003

Employment Discrimination

After a seemingly successful interview at the Internal Revenue Service, a computer specialist wondered why he never heard back from the agency.

Months later, one of the IRS workers who had interviewed him for the GS-13 level position, told him that he had not received the job because an IRS supervisor found out that he was homosexual. The supervisor discovered the applicant's sexual orientation when she called a "good friend" at a federal agency where the computer specialist previously worked to ask for a reference.

She allegedly made several derogatory comments regarding homosexuality and told her co-worker that she would not hire the applicant. After learning why he didn't get the job, the computer specialist filed a complaint with the Office of Special Counsel, claiming that the IRS supervisor had discriminated against him based on his sexual orientation.

A subsequent investigation revealed "reasonable grounds" to suspect the IRS supervisor had violated the United States Code, Chapter 5, Section 2302(b)(10) when she rejected the computer specialist's application. That law prohibits federal agencies from considering "off-duty conduct," that would not affect job performance, including sexual preferences, when screening applicants.

Based on the Office of Special Counsel's findings, the IRS offered the applicant the job along with back pay. He rejected the job offer but accepted a monetary settlement. The IRS also disciplined the supervisor, suspending her without pay for 45 days and demoting her to a non-managerial position for one year.

Office of Special Counsel case, June 20, 2003

COMMENTS

• I don't understand the concern of the union. Everyone knows that it is better to have $100,000-a-year people typing, why would you want to hire $28,000-a-year people to type? At least that is the way it is in my agency and has been for a long time. This is the type of government mismanagement that is everywhere and should be stopped. When we have to have a headcount reduction it comes from the lowest ranks—typists. Get rid of some of the patent examiners and hire more typists. GovExec.com reader Posted June 27, 2003 6:49 AM
• I have a hard time seeing the union viewpoint on this one. Too old? Too set in their ways? Afraid to learn? What has the time until they retire really have to do with learning a skill? I see people in their 70s, 80s and 90s learn to use a PC, and typing documents is only a small part of it. Grammer school students get the basics down in a week. Most people who learn to use a PC can no longer live without them, and that includes those who learned in the caveman days, when what you typed couldn't be changed without effort and major changes meant starting over. This is what we originally meant by "starting with a clean slate." Spell check meant you needed to know how to spell. Grammar check meant you needed to know how to use words. Look up a word? Dictionary! The typewriter didn't do this for you. Every job presents something new to learn every so often. Three years to learn should be more like a generous three months. The people involved already know how to write, and that's a lot harder to learn than simply putting the words on paper (hey! That's typing!). You have to write it in your head before you can tell someone else what to put on the paper. Or, you can write it as you type, like I did with this piece. This looks like once when everyone is lining up to kill a fly with a cannon. I predict a major battle over a minor thing, and I suggest both sides spend their time on more important things. Chuck Kubin Posted June 27, 2003 10:28 AM