Congress is taking up numerous federal employee-related bills, most of which employee organizations oppose and consider something of a parting shot against federal workers in light of the IRS scandal, as legislators prepare to leave for their August recess at the end of this week. The House is set to vote on: HR-2711, to allow members of the public to record conversations with federal employees and to require employees to inform persons who are the target of an enforcement action of that right; HR-2579, to allow agencies to suspend SES employees who are under investigation for misconduct without pay for up to 90 days; HR-313, to impose further limits on government travel and conferences and to require greater reporting on such spending; HR-2769, to impose a moratorium on any conferences at the IRS until its IG certifies that the agency has complied with recommendations of a report on wasteful spending on conferences there; HR-2565, to make it a mandatory firing offense for an IRS employee to take, delay or fail to take an official action for a political purpose; and HR-1541, to allow agencies to pay discretionary performance awards, including quality step increases, to no more than a third of their employees and to cap the total value of such awards at 5 percent of payroll.
