WEEKLY FEDERAL EMPLOYEES' NEWS DIGEST

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP82-00357R000600130043-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 24, 2001
• Sequence Number: 43
• Publication Date: October 4, 1976
• Content Type: BULL

Approved For Release 201105123 : CIA-RDP82-00 57R000600UO43-9
7 4-3
EDITED BY JOSEPH YOUNG
GOVERNMENT COLUMNIST - THE WASHINGTON STAR
PUBLISHED IN WASHINGTON, D.C. DIRECTED TO FIELD PERSONNEL
Vol. 26, No. 10 October 4, 1976
Copyright @ 1976 by FEDERAL EMPLOYEES' NEWS DIGEST, INC.
Washington, D.C.
DOWN THE DRAIN-Some important house-approved bills involving federal employees have gone down
the drain due to the Senate Civil Service Committee's failure to act on them.
Most of the bills were approved by the House last year, but the Senate group either wouldn't or
couldn't take them up. Consequently, the bills died with the end of the 94th Congress.
The bills would have:
o Permitted federal and postal employees to continue their health and life insurance coverage upon
retirement if they have at least 5 years of service before retirement, instead of the present 12 years require-
ment. Also retirement would be mandatory at age 70 with 5 years service instead of the present 15 years.
o Restored full annuities to retirees who are single in cases where the person they have designated to
receive a survivor annuity have predeceased them. Married retirees already have this right.
o Given the right of counsel or other representation to federal employees during interrogation that
could lead to adverse action.
o Exempted federal health insurance carriers from various states' health benefits requirements, thus
reducing government employee health insurance premiums by an estimated 5 percent.
These bills were not earth-shakers but they were important. And most of them were unopposed by the
Ford administration.
However, the Senate committee never showed any enthusiasm for the bills.
One reason given was that the anti-federal employee mood in the Senate would have made bringing
up such bills a wasted effort. But the House, where federal employees appeared to be even less loved, had
approved the bills.
Another reason was that during the last weeks of the session Majority Leader Mike Mansfield forbade
Senate committee meetings without leadership approval and this prevented any last-minute action by the
civil service group.
In any event, the bills are dead and this is a shame. They were really non-controversial, cost little or
nothing, and would have benefited a substantial number of employees and retirees.
9OL13" ON BACK PAY CLAIMS-Everything is "hold" again on the back pay claims of federal em-
ployees assigned to higher grade jobs for more than 120 days.
in a series of on-again, off-again shenanigans that would make any bureaucrat worth his salt proud of
the confusion compounded, these employees still don't know if their claims will be honored.
Some months ago the General Accounting Office issued decisions which held that employees assigned
to higher grade jobs for more than 120 days were entitled to back pay. As a result of this decision, thou-
sands of employees filed such claims with their agencies.
'I'hr (SAO hasrtl its (IrcisiMns tin a (.'ivii "rrviru ('uiotutiss,iuut'r; appuak hc,;u'ci nulitwl', that such
, U t) i t ti t loos fi;~s t'i1yhiyit's lord lt) be i):ud
11" i~i A~i'pr~ied 1~6~6 lS~~t~Il1lj2~3 i.t 'I'-i-bb1 `~io`bb~00130043-9; the
.,~j;Iiei fates.
 Approved For Release 2QQ,1/05/23: CIA-RDP82-00357R0006001 ,p43-9
Published weekly except the last week in December However, the Supreme Court subsequently in
and the first week in January. FEDERAL EM- a case involving wrongful job classification ruled that
PLOYEES' NEWS DIGEST at 7115 Leesburg Pike,
Falls Church, Virginia 22043. Second Class postage employees whose jobs were wrongly classified were
paid at Falls Church, VA and additional mailing not entitled to back pay.
offices.
SUBSCRIPTION RATES This threw the ball back to the GAO and the
2nd class mailing (in U.S. only) ...... $12.00 per year. CSC as well as the Justice Department. After con-
1 st class mailing ........................ $ 16.00 per year. ferring, officials from these agencies felt that the high
Mail all communications and orders to: court ruling did not apply to illegal assignments of
FEDERAL EMI'LoYI:I;S NEWS DIGEST, INC. Illuve thitll 120 Nuys.
P.U. Box 457
Merrifield, , V a. 2 2 116 However, the GAO asked the CSC to decide
Telephone [phone] whether it agreed with its appeals board ruling that
such assignments constituted temporary promotions
and thus entitled employees to back pay.
So, until the three CSC commissioners make their own ruling, all of the employee claims have been
put on "hold." We can't help wondering why it is taking the CSC so long to make up its mind. It's obvious
that if commission rules prohibit assigning a federal employee to higher grade duties for more than 120
days unless it gives specific permission, that employees involved in these cases deserve back pay. But solY-e-
times common sense and justice have little to do with government personnel actions.
NEW MILITANCY-A new era of militancy in federal labor-management relations has been signaled by the
AFL-CIO American Federation of Government Employees during its biennial convention in Las Vegas,
Nev.
In unprecedented action; the 2,000 delegates voted unanimously to give the AFGE's national officers
the power to call strikes or other job actions among the 750,000 federal workers the union represents if
federal pay raises this year or in the future are considered unsatisfactory.
To back up this action, the delegates voted a 70-cents-a-month per capita dues increase, 5 cents of
which will go into a general strike fund.
The new militancy is reflected in the union's new choice of leaders.
Both Kenneth Blaylock, the new president, and Joseph Gleason, elected executive vice president, are
long-standing advocates of union militancy. The AFGE is the largest union of federal government em-
ployees.
Blaylock, 41, is the youngest AFGE president in history and one of the youngest in the American
labor movement. For the past four years he has been the union's national vice president for its 5th Dis-
trict, its largest, which comprises most of the Southern states. A former paratrooper, Blaylock is from
Huntsville, Ala. He has a reputation as a hard-driving and aggressive union leader.
The AFGE convention also voted authorization for the union to organize members of the armed
forces and employees hired by private contractors who work for the government.
However, the AIFGE is expected to go slowly, especially at first, in organizing the military.
At the start of the convention, the union's executive council approved a work-by-rule policy, in other
words a slowdown by federal workers, if President Ford didn't liberalize the 4.83 percent federal white-
collar pay raise recommended by his pay managers.
But the angry convention went even further, authorizing strikes by its members if the raise was too
small, and approving strikes in the future.
The frustration and anger towards the Ford administration for its treatment of federal employees
was evidenced in several ways during the convention. For the first time in its history, the AFGE endorsed
a presidential canditate-Jimmy Carter.
And on the next-to-last day of the convention, an almost incredible scene occurred.
A perfunctory telegram from the White House was read to the delegates in which a lower-echelon of-
ficial said Ford regretted he could not accept the union's invitation to speak. The telegram was short and
brusque, to the point that the delegates felt it was insulting.
\Vr'! (`C 010 lrl{`!Tram ZY:a5 irj1,1,1? ,1 I. Ifiiill!d.r.ntis f?U(iS. C`!tCr'i~ find lil;:
Approved,ForiRelease 2001/05/23: CIA-RDP82-00357R000600130043-9