7/21/09: In response to President Obama’s March instructions to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to conduct a government-wide review of the federal contracting process, OMB solicited input from interested parties on various key outsourcing issues. NTEU welcomed this chance to put on the record the union’s strong views on the abuses resulting from the prior administration’s aggressive outsourcing agenda. NTEU also wanted to set forth clearly how "inherently governmental" and other mission-critical work should be identified and to explain why it is essential that these functions be performed by federal employees.

Because NTEU and AFGE share common goals on this issue, we jointly submitted the attached comments. We urged OMB to clarify that "inherently governmental" functions should be defined exclusively by the Federal Activities Inventory Reform Act. We further urged OMB to reject the later attempts in internal directives, such as the A-76 Circular, to narrow the statutory definition. We then outlined criteria useful in identifying other functions that, while not strictly "inherently governmental," are still critical to an agency’s mission and should be performed by federal employees. We addressed what criteria should be used in determining what work should be "in-sourced," and we touched briefly on how federal contracting policies affect practices in the private labor market.

NTEU is very pleased that the new administration is taking a fresh look at the outsourcing process. Given the inefficiencies and abuses that have resulted from the prior pressure to contract out federal work, as well as the enormous toll on employee morale resulting from that undertaking, we expect OMB to act aggressively to improve the process. we are hopeful that, once again, federal employees will be given a chance to demonstrate that they are the best equipped to perform the work of the federal government in an efficient, cost-effective, and responsible manner.