June 2007: On Wednesday, May 23, at the end of the SEC’s 52nd Annual Awards Celebration, NTEU Chapter 293 President Greg Gilman and OHR Associate Executive Director Jeff Risinger jointly accepted an award presented to the SEC in recognition of its recent ranking as the “third best place to work” in the federal government. This award was presented by John Palguta from the Partnership for Public Service. The Partnership, together with American University’s Institute for the Study of Public Policy Implementation, created the “Best Places to Work” rankings based on the results from last year’s OPM Federal Human Capital Survey.

Mr. Palguta stated during his presentation that he felt that it was appropriate for the award to be made jointly to one representative from the union and one from management. He also noted that the SEC had ranked second overall in two categories, “Work/Life Balance” which measures the extent to which employees feel that there is a balance between their work and personal lives, and “Strategic Management” which recognizes the agency’s success in recruiting and retaining highly qualified employees to achieve the agency's mission. The SEC also ranked third overall in the “Pay and Benefits” category.

Over the past several years, NTEU has had a substantial impact on precisely these issues at the SEC, which has led directly to much improved perceptions by employees of the agency as a workplace. Indeed, it is important to note that, back in 2001, when SEC employees were surveyed about job satisfaction, they were overwhelmingly dissatisfied with their compensation and a number of other non-pay issues related to their work lives. What has been the most significant change at the agency that has led to vast improvements in these areas?
Union representation by NTEU, which commenced in June 2000.

The categories that SEC scored the highest on were the direct result of NTEU’s hard work to improve the SEC. Compensation has vastly improved due to the union’s work to obtain passage of the Pay Parity legislation, as well as its continuing efforts each year to fight for higher federal pay raises. NTEU also has negotiated and obtained for SEC employees a host of important benefits that afford them a better work-life balance, such as alternative schedules, including 5-4/9 and flexible schedules, the right to telework up to two days a week, the right to earn and use credit hours, and the Student Loan Repayment Program. NTEU has achieved these and many other important benefits, on many occasions, only after facing stiff opposition from agency management, sometimes including the necessity of litigation.

After the ceremony, Jeff Risinger stated that “The SEC is very pleased with the designation of being the third best place to work in the federal government based on the results of the Federal Human Capital Survey. However, I am most interested in continuing to improve our performance in these rankings by working with the NTEU to learn as much as we can from the survey data and making appropriate improvements.”

Greg Gilman, who also was presented with the SEC Chairman and NTEU President’s Labor-Management Relations Award earlier in the ceremony, said, “The SEC’s invitation to NTEU to jointly accept this award from the Partnership represents a recognition by the agency of the union’s critical role in improving the lives of employees. I view it as an important early step towards creating better relations between the union and management for the benefit of the employees, and I look forward to continuing to work towards that goal.” He went on to state, “I accepted this award on behalf of all of the dues-paying members of the union, without whose support we would be unable to accomplish anything at the agency.”