2/8/10: This afternoon, the Union filed a national grievance against the SEC seeking to compel the agency to provide documents and information regarding the employee focus group process that was conducted over the summer in response to the 2008 Federal Human Capital Survey results. In the grievance, the Union alleges that the SEC has violated federal labor statutes by failing and refusing to provide the information to the Union. The Union requests copies of the documents and information, as well as a briefing on the focus group reports provided by the consultants who ran the groups.

The documents and information sought by the Union were created in connection with the "focus group" process that the SEC and the Union set up over last summer to seek anonymous feedback from non-management employees regarding the SEC's poor ratings in the 2008 Federal Human Capital Survey. Ironically, the SEC has failed to provide this information to the Union -- even though it concerns the opinions of the employees represented by the Union -- while the agency simultaneously has communicated to its employees that it is listening to their concerns and working to respond to them in a positive fashion.

The current national grievance is the most recent example of a long line of poor decisions by the SEC regarding how to handle input from its own employees about problems that exist at the agency.

As the Union has reported in the past (see previous article here), the SEC received low marks from its employees in the 2008 Federal Human Capital Survey, which occurred shortly before the SEC came under heavy criticism as a result of the financial crisis and the Madoff controversy. After that 2008 survey, the Union was required to fight for months to obtain the survey results broken down by office and division.

Thereafter, it took more months for the SEC to come to an agreement with the Union which would permit non-management employees to participate in a safe, anonymous focus group process to provide more in depth feedback on changes that are needed at the agency.

Even after that focus group agreement was reached, however, the agency's Director of the Division of Enforcement refused to permit Enforcement employees to participate in the focus groups. To date, the Union has been unable to persuade the Chairman's Office to reverse that dubious decision.

Now, after SEC management has been in possession of the focus group reports and results for months, it has failed to share them with the employees' Union representatives. Indeed, although SEC managers were briefed weeks ago on bargaining unit employees' feedback, the SEC has failed to brief the employees' representatives.

It is unfortunate that today, even as OPM is sending out invitations to SEC employees to participate this week in the 2010 federal employee survey (now called the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey), the SEC still has failed to adequately respond to the 2008 results.