STATEMENT OF ROBERT M. TOBIAS, NATIONAL PRESIDENT NATIONAL TREASURY EMPLOYEES UNION TO THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON FEDERAL SERVICES, POST OFFICE, AND CIVIL SERVICE SENATE GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS COMMITTEE ON THE FEDERAL EMPLOYEES LEAVE BANK ACT OF 198

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90M00005R000700040042-0
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 13, 2013
• Sequence Number: 42
• Publication Date: March 18, 1988
• Content Type: MISC

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The National 'freasury Employees Union
STATEMENT OF
ROBERT M. TOBIAS
NATIONAL PRESIDENT
NATIONAL TREASURY EMPLOYEES UNION
TO THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON FEDERAL SERVICES, POST OFFICE,
AND CIVIL SERVICE
SENATE GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS COMMITTEE
ON
THE FEDERAL EMPLOYEES LEAVE BANK ACT OF 1988
S, 2140
MARCH 18, 1988
1730 K Street, N.W. ? Suite 1101 ? Washington. D.C. 20006 ? (2021 7R5-4411
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Chairman Pryor, Members of the Subcommittee:
I am Robert Tobias, National President of the National
Treasury Employees Union. I would like to thank you for giving
NTEU the opportunity to express its support for S. 2140, the
Federal Employees Leave Bank Act of 1988. This legislation
would allow federal employees to help colleagues who are
experiencing a personal hardship. As the exclusive
representative of over 130,000 federal employees throughout 18
government agencies, NTEU fully supports this measure, and
would like to commend you, Mr. Chairman, for introducing it and
holding this hearing today.
The current system of earning and using leave is not always
adequate. In instances where an employee or family member has
a serious illness or medical condition, the amount of time
required to stay home to recuperate or care for a loved one can
quickly diminish any accumulated leave. Unfortunately, the
only options available to an employee in that situation are
leave without pay or simply quitting the job. Leave sharing
offers an answer to this problem.
The concept of leave sharing is relatively new to the
federal government. The first federal leave sharing effort
took place in 1986, when a private bill providing a program for
NTEU members Shannon and Joseph Chiles was enacted by
Congress. Shannon Chiles had terminal cancer, and her husband
was caring for her. Shannon and Joe had used up all their
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annual leave and were taking leave without pay. Dozens of IRS
employees offered to donate unused sick and annual leave to the
couple, and management would have agreed to the leave sharing,
but was prohibited from doing so by federal law. (See 5 USC,
Sections 6301 and 6307).
The Chiles' NTEU Chapter, Chapter 77, took the issue to
their Representative, Congressman William Lehman. In the final
days of the 99th Congress, legislation was enacted that allowed
IRS workers in Florida to donate unused leave time to the
couple.
The response was impressive. Several hundred employees,
both management and bargaining unit members, donated about
5,000 sick leave hours and 1,500 annual leave hours to the
Chiles family. In our December 1986 monthly union newsletter,
we ran an article on Shannon and Joseph Chiles. We received an
overwhelming response from federal employees who read the
article and wanted to know if they could donate leave to the
Chiles or others they knew to be in need.
Congressman Frank Wolf authored language in the Fiscal Year
1987 Continuing Resolution, PL 99-591, which authorized the
Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to conduct an experiment
on federal leave sharing. The experiment, which allowed for 3
participants, was an overwhelming success. The need for such a
program was underscored by the fact that about 250 people
applied to be one of the 3 participants in a period of 30
days. Congress recognized this need again in the Fiscal Year
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1988 Continuing Resolution, by continuing and expanding the
leave sharing experiment, making it available to an unlimited
number of employees until September 30, 1988. This extension
was enacted with the intent of authorizing a permanent program
this year. Currently at NTEU, we hear almost daily from our
membership about co-workers who could benefit from this
important program.
The leave bank approach to establishing a permanent leave
sharing program taken in S. 2140 differs from the House bill,
H.R. 3757. The House legislation primarily provides for direct
donations of leave from one employee to another, although it
does provide for a one agency experiment with a leave bank.
There are definite merits to both approaches. A leave bank
system eliminates the serious administrative problem of dealing
with the restoration of unused donated leave. It also provides
a degree of privacy for the leave recipient, which could be
very important to some individuals who,, for whatever reason, do
not want their circumstances widely known. On the other hand,
one of the benefits of a direct donation approach is that some
employees may be more inclined to donate leave for a person
they know, or a situation they are informed about, rather than
to a blind bank.
OPM has raised administrative concerns about both direct
donations, because of the problems of restoration of leave to
the donor, and leave banks, because of the degree of
"administrative machinery" that would be involved. Since
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neither approach has been tried on a widespread basis, it is
hard to know which would be more utilized by the employees or
which is less administratively cumbersome.
We feel that the best way to address this situation
legislatively would be to authorize a program experimenting
with both leave banks and direct donations for a period of five
years. The Leave Bank Boards that S. 2140 would establish for
each agency could determine which ?approach would be suitable
for that agency. They could even decide that a leave bank
would be the best system in one region or other subdivision of
the agency, and that a direct donation program would be more
appropriate to another. The Board members would have the
working knowledge of the agency needed to determine which
approach would best address the needs of the employees, and be
the most administratively feasible. It seems to us that this
is the best way to actually find out which program would have
the most long-term success.
We would urge you, further, to include some provision
allowing for the donation of sick leave in S. 2140. We believe
that any leave sharing program should include both sick and '
annual leave, and would urge that, at the very least,
provisions similar to those in H.R. 3757, allowing for two sick
leave donation experiments, be added to the bill.
S. 2140, like the House bill, mandates that all leave
sharing will be done solely on a voluntary basis. It contains
language prohibiting coercion to insure that no one is forced
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to participate against their will. We agree with this concept
of voluntary participation, and believe that only the employee
should decide how his or her annual leave is going to be used.
We also support Section 6334, which establishes a 3 person
Leave Bank Board in each agency to administer the leave bank.
The Board is required to have at least one representative of a
labor organization or employee group, which we feel is crucial
to the effective administration of the leave banks.
In closing, we feel that the establishment of a long-term,
government-wide leave sharing program is an idea whose time has
come. Federal employees have demonstrated their desire to
participate in such a program and help their colleagues in
need.
Leave sharing is a no-lose situation for the government,
both financially and in terms of employee morale.
Leave sharing may actually save the government money.
Leave is donated on an "hour to hour" basis, with no monetary
value given to the annual leave. Savings were accrued in the
OPM leave sharing experiment because most employees who are in
a position to donate leave have established seniority in the
government. These employees tend to be in the higher GS grades
and would receive the leave, or payment for the leave, at a
higher scale than that of the leave sharing participant, in
many cases. Furthermore, the retention of competent workers
who return after absences on shared leave time will save the
government additional money by eliminating the need to recruit
and train new employees.
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While we urge changes to incorporate sick leave, and to
experiment with both leave banks and direct leave donations,
NTEU supports the Federal Employees Leave Bank Act of 1988. We
look forward to working with the members of this subcommittee
to ensure enactment of leave sharing legislation.
I will be happy to answer any questions you might have.
SAF/s1w/2845L
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