News Briefs

THE DAILY FED

News Briefs

The following news summaries are from OPM AM, the daily newsletter of the Office of Personnel Management. OPM AM is available on OPM Mainstreet, the agency's electronic bulletin board, at 202-606-4800.

THE FEDERAL DIARY--Today's column discusses making health care changes outside the annual open season and the upcoming open season for the Thrift Savings Plan (The Washington Post).

WELFARE HIRES--"After urging private business to hire welfare recipients. . . . The White House is considering ways to make federal jobs available to those leaving the welfare rolls under the reform law passed last year" (USA TODAY).

AFGE--"In a break with tradition and a sign of the pressures created by privatization,' one of the government's largest unions has negotiated a contract to represent employees of a private sector contractor" (The Washington Post, The Federal Page).

THE FEDERAL TIMES--Federal unions are campaigning against the proposal for a Constitutional amendment requiring a balanced federal budget. "Future pay raises, retirement and other benefits would be drastically reduced, along with numerous other programs, the unions say"....The Thrift Savings Plan has opened its own page on the World Wide Web....The national Weather Service is close to announcing a reduction in force....Report advises cutting the Cabinet to five departments (The Federal Times, March 3).

OF INTEREST--"Increasingly popular workplace teams' can breed disharmony if the concentrate only on productivity without making quality of work life an explicit goal, says a sociologist who has studied them" (The Washington Post, Odd Jobs).

OTHER VIEWS--Pension interest rate to remain at 6.875% (Chief, NY, NY, Jan. 31)...Getting a summer job (Journal and Courier, Lafayette, IN, Jan. 30).