October 2006: As previously reported, NTEU continues to await decisions from both the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) and the Federal Service Impasses Panel (FSIP) related to its negotiations with the SEC over a new Compensation Agreement covering pay and benefits for agency employees.

Since September 2004, when the current agreement expired, the NTEU has negotiated with the SEC for improvements in employee pay and benefits, including: making the process for distributing merit increases more fair, transparent and credible; making the SEC’s retirement benefits comparable to the superior benefits offered by the FDIC and OCC; indexing the SEC’s additional contributions for employee health insurance benefits for inflation; and increasing pay rates for employees in Grades 3 to 12, to bring pay for these grades more into line with other financial regulatory agencies.

In its bargaining proposals, by contrast, the SEC has sought unilateral authority to set the level for merit increases each year. Employees would no longer get merit increases of one, two or three steps. Instead, management would unilaterally determine the amount of the pay increases associated with any particular level of performance, without establishing those levels in the agreement or negotiating with NTEU. The SEC also has sought the ability to unilaterally nullify any of the pay and benefits requirements of the agreement if the agency determines that it has “budget constraints,” with no opportunity for bargaining or independent review. NTEU has compared these draconian SEC proposals to the personnel regulations issued by the Department of Homeland Security, which were invalidated by the federal courts earlier this year because they would allow management to unilaterally terminate collective bargaining agreements.

The SEC has pressed its position by filing a petition over the bargaining dispute with the FSIP, seeking an order that would impose the agency’s proposals as the terms of a new compensation agreement. NTEU countered by filing an Unfair Labor Practice charge against the SEC before the FLRA, alleging that the SEC has refused to consult or negotiate in good faith by seeking to require NTEU to waive its rights to bargain and to file any national or group grievances concerning compensation matters.

The FSIP nevertheless took jurisdiction of SEC’s petition (over NTEU’s objections that it should defer until the FLRA disposed of the ULP charge), and an informal conference was conducted early this summer, on July 6-7. This meeting was attended by the full NTEU bargaining team including volunteers Tim Nealon, Veronica Lewis and Joyce Segura. The FSIP representative was unable to mediate a resolution to the dispute, and the parties submitted their final offers on July 10 (copies of which may be viewed at www.nteu.org/sec.aspx), and supporting statements on July 14.

The parties continue to await the decisions of the FLRA and the FSIP.