April 2007: For SEC employees with children in college, the PLUS loan benefit negotiated by NTEU is critically important. PLUS loans allow parents to borrow up to the total cost of college for their child. On March 30, 2007, NTEU was able to finalize a settlement agreement with the SEC under which the agency finally agreed to reimburse employees who applied for but were denied reimbursement of federal PLUS loans (Parent Loans for Undergraduate Students) in 2005 and 2006. The resulting settlement will result in employees being reimbursed hundreds of thousands of dollars.

April 2007: NTEU is extremely proud of its critical role in spearheading and negotiating for the creation of a new Child Development Center at Headquarters in Washington, D.C., the design plans for which were announced this week. The new facility will be called The Harbor at Station Place.

April 2007: On April 3, Chapter 293 leaders at the MIRO held a presentation by representatives from the Colonial Life Insurance Company regarding the various insurance products that NTEU makes available to its members. Those products include short-term disability, accident, cancer, critical illness and universal life insurance.

A number of employees attended this meeting, which followed on the heels of similar presentations in Denver and Washington, D.C. If you are interested in learning more about these union benefits, ask your local steward to set up a presentation at your office.

April 2007: The SEC recently announced that it will move oversight responsibility for the consolidated supervised entities (CSEs), including on-site testing, from the Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (OCIE) to the Division of Market Regulation. The CSEs are five broker/dealer holding companies supervised by the SEC – Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley.

April 2007: In March, NTEU Chapter President Greg Gilman visited the Philadelphia Regional Office, where he was the featured speaker at a members only NTEU meeting. Approximately fifty union members enjoyed a pizza lunch while they received updates from Greg on numerous representational issues, including the status of the current Collective Bargaining Agreement negotiations, compensation issues, the new joint labor-management committee on performance appraisal, recent management efforts to move OCIE functions to the Division of Market Regulation, and other important matters.

April 2007: NTEU supported the president’s recent recess appointment of Carol Waller Pope to the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA). Ms. Pope was originally appointed to the FLRA in 2000 and continued to serve until her term expired last December.

April 2007: As previously reported, the Federal Service Impasses Panel (“FSIP”) entered an order in October 2006 requiring that future merit pay increases at the SEC must be tied to employee ratings under a new five-level performance evaluation system. This system will be redesigned based upon the recommendations of a joint labor-management committee, which met for the first time in Washington, D.C. on April 12, and will meet on a monthly basis for the foreseeable future.

April 2007: Mediation is offered as an alternative dispute resolution process in Section 6 of Collective Bargaining Agreement Article 32 (Grievance Procedures). You may wish to consider trying mediation if you find yourself filing a grievance or if you become subject to a potential disciplinary action.

Over the last 20 years, I have mediated matters as an attorney and as a steward, and I was a volunteer mediator for the Los Angeles Courts prior to joining the Commission. I have found that many different kinds of disputes can be successfully resolved through mediation.

April 2007: During the week of February 26, 2007, NTEU’s Department of Legislation held its annual Legislative Conference. This three-day event included visits to Capital Hill by NTEU chapter leaders and members, during which they met with their elected representatives and senators, as well as staff members, to discuss a variety of issues important to federal employees.

April 2007: On March 21, 2007, NTEU President Colleen Kelley joined with a coalition of organizations representing members of the military and their families in calling for a 3.5 percent pay raise in fiscal 2008 for military personnel. The raise would be one-half percent higher than the three percent raise proposed by the administration for next year for both those in the military and members of the civilian federal workforce.

April 2007:

SEC employees and managers alike have a strong interest in ensuring that the SEC succeeds in its mission of regulating and protecting the financial markets of the United States. For that reason, SEC management and SEC employees’ union representatives both have a mutual stake in working cooperatively to enhance the agency’s effectiveness and efficiency, increase employee morale, and reduce employment-related disputes. Constructing an effective labor-management relationship at the agency is a two-way street. It requires both management and union leaders to be honest with one another, to respect their different interests, and to build upon their common interests. As NTEU President Colleen Kelley has noted in the past: “Working together in partnership allows agency management and federal employees to work together to solve problems that hinder effective delivery of federal services.” Unfortunately, however, the SEC has not always worked to build such a relationship with NTEU.