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AFGE, Local 3937 - Local Business Meeting March 13th, 2024 Conference Call Present were: John Pfannenstein, Patti Mansbach, Tonya Boren, Adam Neff. The meeting was held via Zoom conference call with dial-in information posted to the Members section of our Local website. The meeting was called to order at 5:32pm, chaired by John Pfannenstein, Local President. Agenda:
Jackie was not able to join the call today to provide a report, but she provided a recent checking balance of $82,009 and savings balance of $177,306. Old Business: None. New Business: Government Shutdown Updates - Congress has reached another Continuing Resolution to fund SSA through March 22, 2024. Employee levels are critically low and there is simply not enough staff to get the work done. However, budget expectations are low and SSA is most likely set to keep current funding levels. Reports: Area 1 Unit (A1U) – Last month we worked with the agency to establish Area 1 Unit (A1U), a sister program to SEACloud (for Area 1). It provides opportunities to remotely assign staff to Field Offices with backlogs as part of a support cadre. The selected employees are relieved of their usual duties during the temporary period (up to one year) when they are involved with A1U. There is a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to lay out some protections, particularly related to performance evaluations, and to clarify how the program should work fairly. We were able to incorporate employees from WSU and TSC even though they are not directly managed under the Area Director’s office; but management retains the ability to determine if they will be included in the Solicitations of Interest (SOIs) based on business needs of those components. 2024 AFGE Legislative Conference, Washington DC - We sent four officers/reps to the Legislative Conference in February this year: John, Jackie, Melanie and Patti. They met with about 15 legislative offices in a 3-day period. We spoke with legislators to ask for $17b in additional funding for fiscal year 2024, to rebuild our staffing losses. Since 2010, we’ve lost about 11,000 employees. AFGE also put together a supplemental funding request of $20b over a 10-year period ($2b per year), to be used for upgrading pay grades, and fulfilling contract agreement issues like UMCCs, childcare subsidies, student loan reimbursement, etc. (though it is not an actual sponsored bill at this time). The general consensus from congressional leadership is that we would not see this funding until the end of the fiscal year or later, unfortunately, and as you know we are functioning under yet another Continuing Resolution. Many representatives support us, but it’s not clear if we were able to change any minds among those who did not. Commissioner Martin O’Malley attended as a keynote speaker at the conference, and attended a C220 Q&A meeting. John asked him why he traveled to meet with every region other than Seattle, pushing him to recognize that we are not the same as Denver (where he did visit). He expressed our dissatisfaction with the RA process, where the NRAC relies on the subjective decision of the local supervisor to make a final call on approval/denial (with no medical board to evaluate evidence). O’Malley indicated there may be some movement on PACS, as it’s not working in its current form. The councils are mainly going to be working with him on things that can be fixed or improved on a cost-neutral basis, without additional funding. In terms of understaffing, Melanie shared information about WSU issues, and Jackie recommended that CDR/RZ integrity workloads (set by Congress) should decrease. Open Floor / Miscellaneous: The MOU for episodic telework and split days has been approved. The Union and Agency are trying to find cost neutral ways to increase employee retention due to the current budget situation, and this MOU is one of those ways. Hopefully the Agency is serious about retention and we see additional movement towards employee flexibility to give our BUEs incentive to stay. Patti suggested leveraging our dire staffing levels when assisting BUEs with Reasonable Accommodations or other issues, as losing just one employee in an office is now critical. TESA also appears to be more successful than our current training model and will also hopefully increase retention as a cost neutral measure to keep employees. John was able to assist an office with removing a security guard due to his inappropriate behavior. Minutes Review: Patti made a motion that we accept the minutes as written and read; John seconded. Motion passed. You can stay informed about topics like these and much more by going to www.afge.org to sign up for Action Alerts to be sent via text or email so that you are informed of current legislative and political events – please do so on your personal computer or phone, not on duty time or on Agency equipment. Patti moved to adjourn; Tonya seconded. Motion passed. The meeting ended at 6:02pm. Minutes written and submitted by Tonya Boren. |
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