| Vol.
IV, No. 4, July 2004
DOL
to Pay You Three Days Later —No More Friday Payday
Under orders from the White House, the Department of Labor
(DOL) will have to transfer its payroll operations to
the Agriculture Department’s National Finance Center
(NFC) by September 30, 2004. As of this writing, DOL plans
to do so by August 22, 2004. The NFC is located in New
Orleans, Louisiana. Among the highlights of the payroll
transfer are:
Pay Date Moved Later: The electronic
funds transfer (EFT) payday will be three days later.
Instead of being paid on the Friday after the pay period
ends, you will not be paid until the following Monday.
Pay-by-Exception Abolished:
Currently, if your time card is still open or in reconcile
status, the DOL payroll system triggers “pay-by-exception.”
This means DOL will pay your regular salary and reconcile
the time card later. Under the NFC system, you would be
paid up to 70% of your gross salary, which could be adjusted
later.
Paper Earnings and Leave Statements Discontinued:
Instead, NFC will make electronic Earnings and Leave Statements
(E&LS) available through Employee Express. No employer
contributions for benefits, including TSP, would appear
on the electronic E&LS; the employee would have to
search for them elsewhere on Employee Express. NFC will
also omit other data available in DOL’s in-house
payroll system. For example, DOL can maintain separate
legal and mailing addresses, whereas NFC’s system
can have only one.
AFGE 12 has proposed that the EFT pay day remain Friday.
This is a negotiable proposal given past rulings of the
Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA). Nevertheless,
DOL has threatened to go ahead with the payroll conversion.
The Union will continue to fight this change.
Union Presidents Warn Chao of Possible
Crisis
On June 28, 2004, AFGE 12 President Larry Drake, National
Council of Field Labor Locals President Ron Yarman, and
National Union of Labor Investigators President Mary Kebisek
jointly wrote to Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao voicing
concerns about transferring payroll to NFC. They urged
her to delay the transfer until NFC’s system can
be shown to be superior to DOL’s payroll system.
The three presidents pointed out that the Office of the
Inspector General has raised six concerns about the proposed
transition, only one of which had been resolved. Moreover,
the major tasks associated with transferring DOL payroll
to NFC were behind schedule. Because computer projects
do not respond favorably to time and resource constraints,
the three presidents warned Secretary Chao: “The
result may well be a crisis in which some or all DOL employees
are not paid in September or October, with possible recurring
non-payments.”
Current Status
During the week of May 24-28, 2004, AFGE 12 engaged in
mid-term negotiations to reduce as much as possible the
anticipated harm from transferring payroll to NFC.
The Union and Management are anxious to resolve the outstanding
issues and have reached tentative agreement on seven items,
including
- DOL will pursue through NFC inclusion of the items
we now get on our E&L on the NFC-E&L.
- Transfer of the payroll to NFC will have at most
a de minimus effect on the calculation of employees’
leave balances, pay, or other benefits.
- DOL anticipates that transferring payroll to NFC
will eliminate the work done by 11 employees in the
Office of the Chief Financial Officer (OCFO) Division
of Compensation and Benefits (DCB). Management has
agreed that they will not lose any grade, pay or benefits.
They will be reassigned positions for which there
is a best fit within DOL national office agencies.
They will be provided with appropriate training for
their new positions. Management will attempt to reassign
them into positions according to their preferences.
There will be a joint Union-Management meeting to discuss
the impact of the changes and Local 12 will have 30 minutes
alone with the bargaining unit employees at the end of
the meeting.
Three issues remain to be resolved, including the Union’s
proposal to keep Friday as the payday. Management challenged
the negotiability of this proposal, meaning the Union
has to file a negotiability appeal with the FLRA.
Unless management is successful in persuading the FLRA
that the Union’s proposal is not negotiable, DOL
cannot legally implement the payroll transfer to NFC.
In addition to the payday, the union has proposed retaining
the current paper E&LS and the current information
provided. On June 28, 2004, the parties met jointly with
a Federal mediator to iron out differences on these issues,
together with the payday. This effort was not successful.
Once the FLRA resolves the payday dispute, the next step
is the Federal Service Impasses Panel (FSIP). FSIP will
either resolve the issues or mandate a procedure to resolve
them.
AFGE 12 believes that the DCB employees should be retained
in their current positions because an outside comparison
found DOL’s payroll system superior to NFC’s.
Because NFC does not have an integrated paperless payroll
function, AFGE 12 and (we think) OCFO anticipate that
DOL will have to commit (waste) time and resources to
interface with the NFC system.
Voter Registration
In order to vote in the national election on Tuesday,
November 2, 2004, residents of the following states need
to register by:
District of Columbia
Friday, October 1, 2004
Maryland
Thursday, October 14, 2004
Virginia
Friday, October 15, 2004
West Virginia
Friday, October 15, 2004
$1,085
That is how much – as of July 2004 – a DOL
employee who would use the full $100 transit subsidy has
lost since January 2002, as a result of Secretary Chao’s
refusal to raise the transit subsidy to $100 as required
by Executive Order 13150. It’s $35 a month that
many DOL employees should be receiving but aren’t.
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