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A key House lawmaker took issue with language relating to federal job competitions in the fiscal 2004 Transportation-Treasury budget bill before House and Senate negotiators agreed to include the now-controversial language in the conference report on the bill.

The language grants federal employees or their representatives legal standing to appeal decisions on job competitions conducted under Office of Management and Budget Circular A-76. It is one the provisions that prompted Bush administration officials to lodge last minute objections to the conference report on the bill Monday, industry and union sources said. Because of these objections, lawmakers have yet to formally file the conference report.

The language in the conference report is too broad, Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., wrote in a Nov. 12 letter to Rep. Ernest Istook Jr., R-Okla., chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Treasury and Independent Agencies. While federal employees should have the right to contest agency competitive sourcing decisions before the General Accounting Office, the provision would give "anyone chosen by the employees, including a union representative," legal standing before GAO, creating a "dangerous precedent," Davis said.

Industry lobbyists have expressed similar concerns about the provision. Stan Soloway, president of the Professional Services Council, an Arlington, Va.-based contractors' association, last week called the language the "death knell" of the competitive sourcing initiative. He claimed the provision would effectively allow unions to protest A-76 studies at every turn.

But federal employee unions have said the language is necessary. "How can anyone contend that the privatization process is fair when only one side can hold decision-makers accountable?" asked American Federation of Government Employees President John Gage.

Davis "counts an expansion of appeals rights as one of his top priorities in the competitive sourcing debate," said his spokesman, David Marin. "He's said so dozens of times."

In his Nov. 12 letter, Davis suggested that conferees consider refining the language by allowing federal employees to choose an agency official to represent them before GAO.

Gage rejected that approach. "Investing [legal] standing in a senior manager, instead of the federal employees actually affected, is a sham," Gage said. "These senior managers, who face unrelenting pressure to privatize whenever and wherever possible, couldn't possibly be expected to act with the necessary autonomy."

AFGE also expressed disappointment that statements in Davis' letter appeared to contradict his publicly expressed support for eliminating a requirement in OMB's A-76 guidelines forcing in-house teams winning bids to re-compete for work at regular intervals. These intervals could range from three to eight years, depending on circumstances.

During a Sept. 9 floor debate over proposed amendments to the House version of the Transportation-Treasury bill, Davis argued against the re-competition requirement. "Who wants to come work for the federal government and dedicate a career to civil service if your job is going to be up for evaluation every five years?" he asked.

But in his letter, Davis wrote that exempting in-house teams who win work from having to re-compete "merely because a competition has been held within five years simply makes no sense and unfairly tilts the playing field toward the public sector."

Last week's version of the Transportation-Treasury conference report included language eliminating the automatic five-year re-competition requirement for in-house teams.

The concerns raised in Davis' letter are mostly procedural, said Marin. Davis sent the letter partly to express his "consternation" that House members had little chance to review the competitive sourcing language under consideration by the conference committee, he added. Most of the provisions on the table last week originated in the Senate version of the Transportation-Treasury bill.

COMMENTS

• Wow! I could not agree more: "Who wants to work for the federal government...if your job is going to be up for evaluation every five years?" Even criminal suspects, once found innocent, never have to go to trial again. To do so constitutes "Double Jeopardy." This Competitive Outsourcing "reevaluation" concept is somewhat worse & a riduculous slap-in-the-face. Also, has anyone else figured out the "RealDeal" in all this? We're sandwiched "between a rock and a hard place": Getting Our Salaries Raised per 1990 Pay Comparability Act vs Keeping Our Salaries Low to be able to better compete in these Outsourcing Contests. It's all a joke, but I'm not laughing. One Final Thought: When you go to the voting booth, just remember which president doesn't want that civilian pay parity with the military which his very own dad initiated! Word Up. GovExec.com reader Posted November 21, 2003 10:18 AM
• Until the the Revision, all federal employees had the right to appeal A-76 decisions within the agency. There were/are strict time limits on this process. The issue was and should be only about granting equal secondary access to the GAO. Not every federal employee should be able to go to GAO - any more than any contract employee can, but let's not equate federal union A-76 access to contractor union/employee access. The federal unions are best suited to represent directly affected federal parties in A-76 compliance complaints - not some inherently governmental agency offical asked to argue against the agency. As a matter of law, Ffderal unions already represent all bargaining unit employees. The argument over the ten percent minimum savings differential is also insane. For 20 years it went both ways - and worked fine. The 5-year recompete is different. What is good for the goose should be good enough for the gander. Recompetition for commercial services should be driven by the solicitation. The taxpayer has a right to know that there is no special contract or employment class for this kind of work. GovExec.com reader Posted November 21, 2003 8:32 AM