The Senior Executives Association is pushing for a
consolidation of the various agencies that hear federal
employee appeals into once central body, which it suggests
be called the Federal Employee Appeals Court. The court
would handle disciplinary, whistleblower and other cases
now in the province of the Merit Systems Protection Board,
the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Federal
Labor Relations Authority, the Office of Special Counsel,
plus challenges of similar actions through the negotiated
grievance arbitration route.
At a House federal workforce subcommittee hearing, SEA
argued that the current “complicate process gives pause
to even the best manager before taking action or even
engaging in frank day-to-day conversations about performance
and workplace conduct.” It said that rather than deal with
the process, many managers simply decide to ignore a problem,
making it all the more difficult to address in the future.
The burden on managers will only increase under the reformed
personnel systems ahead at the Defense and Homeland Security
departments, SEA said, since those systems rely more heavily
on performance evaluations for pay, promotion, RIF retention
and other purposes.
Members of the subcommittee expressed interest in improving
the employee appeals process, although they did not commit
to a reorganization along the lines of that proposed by SEA.
Several expressed interest in ideas raised by the heads
of several appeals agencies to instead identify the specific
provisions of current law and regulation that allow for
duplicative appeals and that cause the process to drag out.
In particular, witnesses focused on a procedure that allows
certain cases to go to EEOC even after being decided by
MSPB, as well as the length of time agencies spend
investigating bias complaints even before a hearing officer
takes up the case. Greater emphasis on early dispute
resolution also was suggested.
National Treasury Employees Union President Colleen M.
Kelley said the proposal “cuts to the heart of due
process,” and would eliminate the negotiated grievance and
arbitration procedures on equal employment opportunity and
adverse action issues. NTEU warned such a court would
become “an enormous, unwieldy conglomerate agency,” and
pointed to organizational woes at the Department of
Homeland Security as a cautionary tale.
