3/9/07: Yesterday, NTEU President Colleen Kelley submitted a statement for the record to the Subcommittee on the Federal Workforce of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee for its hearing on federal personnel reform issues. Click here to review the statement she submitted.

The Subcommittee heard testimony from a number of nonmanagement and nonunion witnesses in its ongoing review of proposed new personnel systems, including market-sensitive pay and pay-for-performance demonstration programs in the federal government. While a few witnesses argued in favor of so-called performance based reforms, a number of others spoke to the shortcomings and failures of demonstration pay banding programs at agencies such as DOD, DHS and TSA.

Subcommittee member Rep. Steve Lynch (D-MA) quoted from President Kelley's statement and stressed serious shortcomings of pay-for-performance systems and their failure to promote teamwork and objectivity. He quoted from the Hay Group study on Senior Manager Payband Evaluation at the IRS which showed that 76 percent of covered employees felt the system had a negative or no impact on their motivation to perform their best.

President Kelley's statement raises many of the issues she raised earlier this week before the House Appropriations Subcommittee in addition to pay-for-performance, including the pay raise, the integrity of federal health insurance, and her opposition to contracting out inherently governmental work.