NATIONAL COUNCIL OF
EEOC LOCALS No. 216
AMERICAN FEDERATION OF
GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES
AFL-CIO
Gabrielle Martin, President
EEOC -
Cari Dominguez, Chair
Equal Employment
Re: Reorganization Proposal
Dear Chair Dominguez:
In response to your Dear
Colleague Letter, the briefings on Tuesday morning and the materials posted on
the Agency’s website, I submit the following on behalf of the National Council
of EEOC Locals No. 216 (the National Council).
INSUFFICIENT NOTICE AND
First and foremost, I request
that you reschedule and re-designate the Commission meeting scheduled for
As an aside, while the
Although it helps to hear
from you after three years, it is disconcerting that you want to prevent the
public from obtaining details or commenting on your plan. This flies in the face of our February 2005
conversation where you stated that you would have a public hearing to obtain
input and feedback on your plan, comments from the September 2003 meeting on the
THE PLAN
The proposed plan is a house
of cards, precariously stacked on the
THE PLAN DOES NOT EXPLAIN
HOW SAVINGS WILL BE REALIZED:
The proposal calls for 15
Mega Offices with larger jurisdictions than currently exist for most District
Offices. While the placement of the
offices under the shells has changed, the structure really has not. We still have District Area, Local and Field
offices; the Directors of each of these offices still reports to someone. The state of the Commission’s technology,
addressed more fully below, currently prevents us from realizing efficiencies
from moving the shells. Moreover, the
criteria and rationale for the proposals are not clear – did the Commission
consider where the growth is and is projected, or did it just continue its
tradition of having larger territories in the west and smaller territories and
more offices in the east?
The lack of details in your
plan prevents anyone from concluding, as you have, that this plan will allow
for well managed and efficient offices. Nor
does your plan address or provide any information on how the Commission will
save any money. The savings are
projected to be long term, but unless cuts are made in the future, no cost
savings ever will accrue. However, your
plan is not forthright enough to state explicitly that these cuts will
inevitably mean cuts in staff and office closings in the future.
In this regard, your plan
increases the current number of offices.
Specifically, the Commission proposes to open two new offices that must
be staffed sufficiently. Since for the
most part your plan fails to address staffing plans with grades for any of the
offices, where will the savings come from?
Further, under your plan,
newly designated Field offices, i.e. demoted District Offices will be hiring
high level managers. Redeploying people in
those offices usually means that to the extent that people currently occupy positions,
when/if the individuals are moved to other positions, the salaries go with the
individuals. To the extent that the
Commission transfers employees to other offices, the Commission will incur and pay
moving costs. Or does the Commission
plan to “force relocations” to encourage employees to leave? Finally, to the extent that positions throughout
the Commission have remained vacant over time, has not the Commission already
realized the savings? Unless, of course,
what really is occurring is that the Commission requests money for employees,
but recklessly spends it on other projects like the call center. The real point is that no savings will accrue
to the Commission any time soon.
And what becomes of the
smaller offices in the future? Will the
smaller offices remain open beyond approval of the plan? If so, for how long and how will they be
staffed? What savings is the Commission projecting
to realize each year in the future by closing some or all of them? If the offices remain open and the net gain
is two offices, how will the Commission save money, either today or in the
future?
As for savings, it has not
been explained how hiring GS-15 managers or promoting Regional Attorneys to SES
positions in offices currently without them saves any money, either now, or in
the future. Since we have not hired in
so long, but have continued to request funding for positions that remain
unfilled, what happened to the money?
As for the downgrading of
approximately one third (1/3) of the Commissions’ District Offices, it is
unclear how that saves money? Staffing
is at an all time low, despite appropriations language requiring that the
Commission maintain FY 04 staffing levels.
Moreover, the Commission has been so circumspect with respect to space,
that on more than one occasion, is has moved an office into smaller, but
equally expensive office space, and on more than one occasion has had to obtain
additional space for those offices. The Washington
Field Office and the San Francisco District Office come to mind in this
regard.
As for proposed downgraded offices,
does this mean that the offices will lose space? Since the decision to have Mediation and
Outreach Programs, many offices already are without sufficient space for conference
and caucus rooms in order to function. Even
so, Mediation units shuffle participants throughout the office to conduct the mediations. Federal sector mediations also compete for space. Trial units take over existing conference
rooms in order to prepare for trial.
Intake areas have been reduced in size, stretching some offices to
breaking when it comes to conducting intake.
As for the call center and
its ability to have people fill out charges on-line, many people prefer to come
into the office. Often it is a matter of
what works for the charging party. Charging
parties have driven across states to talk to Investigators and file their
charges, so the Commission must have sufficient space available to service the
public.
THE PLAN DOES NOT ADDRESS
WHERE ALLEGED COST SAVINGS WILL BE INVESTED
If alleged costs savings are
realized, will the EEOC reinvest in much needed staff. At that juncture EEOC has lost approximately
500 employees or 15% of the work force.
Is the EEOC going to invest savings here?
PERSONNEL RULES PROBLEMS
Many people are upset that
their positions will be abolished. How
far will the Commission bend the rules in order to implement your plan? Will the rules be broken in the process of
implementing your plan? For example,
will the Commission continue to hire temporary and term employees to work
side-by side with permanent employees doing the same function? Will we let go of the temporary and term
employees whenever we need to justify savings, leaving offices once again,
understaffed? Have you analyzed the
costs of the revolving door training and recruiting for term and temporary
employees?
The objections of the
employees are real, given the pronouncements about the positions that will be
“redeployed” as Investigators and Mediators.
Employees are concerned that the Commission is rewriting the personnel
rules. Based on announcements during the
briefings that positions such as Budget Analyst, Human Resources Specialist,
and Administrative Officer will be abolished in the field, but that these
individuals would be redeployed as Investigators and Mediators, it appears
decisions have already been made about who qualifies for what positions. How many people are currently employed in the
positions being eliminated? Since
decisions were made in the past not to fill vacancies, to what positions can
people be deployed? As for Program
Analysts in the downgraded offices, how did we make the decision to retain
current people at the GS-14 level, but to fill new vacancies with people at the
GS-12 level to do the same work? Also, how
does it look when EEOC does not have local human resources personnel but we
encourage employers to have them on-site?
EFFICIENCIES WILL NOT BE
REALIZED
While shifting the shells,
states once covered by one District’s jurisdiction now are covered by another
District Office’s jurisdiction. There
are at least 14 offices that will change reporting and or have their
jurisdictional maps redrawn. There will
be increased travel costs to service the larger jurisdictional areas. Our FEPA and TERO relationships will be
damaged at a time when FEPA funding from the states has been drastically
reduced. Charging parties transferred
around the country by the call center now will be transferred around the
country by offices without jurisdiction.
How are we better serving the public?
When and how will cases be transferred?
If we are not doing the work in the locale of the charging party and
Respondent business location, who really is being served? If we are not transferring charges, then
Respondent’s will be dealing with two offices concerning charges at the same
facility, depending on when the charging party filed. What guarantee is there that the new office
will use the same processes and procedures, given the variances in staffing and
workloads?
INCREASED SPAN OF CONTROL
DOES NOT EQUATE TO EFFECTIVENESS
The real reason that there
will not be efficiencies or effectiveness as a result of the Commission’s
proposal is that Commission’s structure is going from an upside down pyramid
that is top heavy with mangers, to an hour glass structure, still top heavy
with managers. Moving the shells just
means that the shells were moved. Such
is the reality of the span of control issues.
Typically, at higher levels of management, we see a pyramid shape with a
greater number employees reporting to fewer highest level individuals. At EEOC, we will see the reverse.
Nor has the Commission explained
how reducing the number of reports to higher levels makes for more effective communication. Is this a concession that our managers lack
skills or that the Commission’s technology is outdated and will not help us be
more effective? Perhaps, it is a little
of both? In any event, the Commission
has not demonstrated how it will be more effective or efficient.
Moreover, the Commission’s
proposal does not explain how consistency and uniformity among offices will be
achieved. Staffing in the offices among
districts is not uniform; District offices typically have a greater number of
staff. These larger offices have
different structures and can perform tasks in a certain manner. But, within a district, the smaller offices bear
the brunt of lack of staff. Offices with
fewer employees are more heavily impacted by things like workload, time spent
in intake, time spent on support staff tasks such as copying and filing. The smaller offices cannot function in the
same manner as the larger offices. How
this equates to or results in uniformity and consistency remains unexplained.
There is no explanation of
how the Commission’s enforcement presence is enhanced since offices and
coverage really remains the same. In
small offices, it can take longer to get all the work done, just due to the
staff size. Moreover, in the
Commission’s smaller offices staff often must work overtime in order to perform
the work, or the work is transferred to other offices. The Commission must recognize and address the
need for staff. Failure to do so remains
problematic. The Commission’s call
center only adds to the problem because despite its $5M price tag, it does not
have sufficient staff or enough phone lines to handle the work. It is just a glorified answering service that
doe not save staff time. The call center
exacerbates the problems faced by our offices when it transfers calls all over
the country, often despite the origins of the calls. These realities raise concerns about how we
are enhancing our presence. Failing to
hire individuals is neither customer centered, nor does it provide the public
with access to the Commission.
AREAS OF CONCERN NOT
ADDRESSED IN THE PLAN THAT PROHIBIT EFFICIENCY AND EFFECTIVENESS:
Although you claim your plan
will result in efficiency and greater effectiveness, your plan fails to address
several areas of concern or specify how your results will be reached:
CONCLUSION
The proposal identifies
several goals but fails to identify how the changes will allow the Commission
to reach those goals. Public comment on
the plan and the process of having to answer questions from the public and the
employees who perform the work can only serve to develop a workable
reorganization. I look forward to
hearing from you about the hearing date.
Sincerely,
Gabrielle Martin
cc: National Council