SEC, union sign new collective bargaining agreement
The National Treasury Employees Union announced on Friday that it had signed a new collective bargaining agreement with the Securities and Exchange Commission that expands the agency's telework program and makes the SEC "one of the most employee-friendly agencies in the federal government," according to NTEU President Colleen Kelley.
The telework program allows SEC employees to work from home as many as five days a week.
The agreement also creates a new "4/10" schedule allowing employees to work four ten-hour days each week, in addition to a "5-4/9" schedule that permits employees to work eight nine-hour days and take off one day every two weeks.
The SEC had wanted a provision that would have allowed supervisors to remove employees from the 5-4/9 schedule at management's discretion, but it was not enacted in the final agreement, NTEU officials said.
The agreement also allows SEC employees to use annual leave donated to a bank for emergency use and provides employees with compensatory time off for travel.
Kelley said the new agreement represents a significant step forward for SEC employees.
"While employees in other agencies have seen their rights and benefits stalled or eroded, SEC employees will see substantial improvements to a workplace contract that was already strong," she said.
NTEU spokesman Dina Long said the agreement does not establish a pay-for-performance system to replace the one that a mediator threw out in September, ruling that it discriminated against African-Americans and employees 40 and older. Compensation issues are part of a separate agreement, Long said.
SEC spokesmen John Heine said the agency had no comment on the agreement.
COMMENTS
- These FIRREA agencies are the biggest unreported scandal in Washington. Not only are they grossly overgraded they are grossly overpaid under their own pay scales. What started out as an attempt to retain some specialized attorneys quickly spread to everyone in the workforces with no justification. Now they simply whipsaw each others wages up. Add on to this pay travesty working from home four days a week and telecommuting and you have colossal taxpayer ripoff. Good subject for a sional investigation. appalled in Washington Posted November 12, 2007 3:21 PM
