​WASHINGTON, DC – The International Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers (IFPTE) issued the following responses to last night’s House of Representatives bipartisan passage of the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act (HR 3463):

IFPTE President Paul Shearon:
“The need for this legislation is long overdue, as millions of private sector workers seeking to organize a union throughout the United States are consistently subjected to employer interference and intimidation tactics. There is no better example of this than what is currently occurring at Southern Cal Edison, where upwards of 800 workers are seeking to form a union and be represented by the Engineers and Scientists of California (ESC/IFPTE Local 20). Unfortunately, the company is doing what most private sector employers do when their workers try to organize, forcing employees to participate in all-staff captive audience meetings, one-on-one meetings, and handing out anti-union literature filled with misinformation aimed at discouraging union activity. IFPTE applauds all of the House members who voted in support of this bill and for standing up for working people.”

IFPTE Secretary-Treasurer/Legislative Director Matt Biggs:
“IFPTE thanks House Education and Labor Chairman Bobby Scott for authoring this bill, moving it through his committee, and ultimately to the full House for this historic vote. We applaud Chairman Scott and all the sponsors of the bill for moving to restore the constitutional right of workers to be able to organize together and form unions. We also recognize and thank Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Hoyer for ensuring that this bill got a vote and for making this issue a top priority. Last night’s vote was a critical step forward in setting the table for this legislation to ultimately become law during the next Congress, as Senate Leader Mitch McConnell will no doubt block the ability for the Senate to consider the legislation this year. That said, IFPTE will continue to work with Congress, and advocate at the grassroots level toward ultimately ensuring that this legislation becomes law.”

The PRO Act passed by a vote of 224-194. Five Republicans joined most House Democrats in support of the bill, while seven Democrats voted against it. Click here to see the final tally.

This week, Judge Ashley Tabaddor, President of the National Association of Immigration Judges/IFPTE Judicial Council 2 (NAIJ), was in D.C. to testify before the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship. The hearing focused on the core issue NAIj has highlighted for over two decades - the structural flaw of housing the Immigration Court in a law enforcement agency that is the Department of Justice - as well as recent policies that threaten to undermine due process and judicial independence.

Judy Perry Martinez, president of the American Bar Association, and Jeremey McKinney, second vice president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, testified along side Judge Tabaddor and shared NAIJ’s analysis of the crisis in the Immigration Court.

Judge Tabaddor described the accumulated affect of recent DOJ policies that advance the DOJ’s law enforcement priorities over the impartial role the Immigration Court is supposed to play as “assembly line justice.” In addition to the recent imposition of arbitrary case and deadline quotas that judges‘ performance is measured by, the Executive Office of Immigration Review’s Office of Policy and the Attorney General have transformed the Immigration Court "into a widget factory management model of speed over substance."

Ultimately, the conflict of interest and the ever-present threat of political interference in the Immigration Court will need to be resolved by creating an "Article 1” Immigration Court that is independent of the DOJ.
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Local 12 President, Mary Bacon, and Steward, John Bernstein, traveled to Washington, DC last week to meet with their lawmakers regarding several issues of importance to their membership, and IFPTE federal members overall.

The issues discussed ranged from funding for infrastructure improvements in the Bremerton Naval Shipyard as well as all public shipyards, advocating for well-deserved federal employee pay raises, and support of legislation to defund the ability of the Federal Services Impasses Panel to unilaterally impose draconian contracts on federal unions.

Bernstein and Bacon, who were joined on Capitol Hill by IFPTE Secretary-Treasurer/Legislative Director Matt Biggs visited with Representatives Derek Kilmer, Rick Larsen, Denny Heck, Elaine Luria and Senator Maria Cantwell, as well as with the staff of House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith, and Senator Patty Murray.

​For the moment, we’re safe. The federal government is currently funded through Thursday, Nov. 21. But, at the close of that day, once again federal employees and their families—and the people and businesses that depend on their work—might suffer yet another shutdown.
The only way out? The usual: Congress must pass at least a continuing resolution, just like it did back in September keeping the government open up to the next deadline.
That last bare-bones bill saved the day—but passing such temporary measures isn’t the best way to run a multi-trillion dollar organization.
“Federal employees, like everyone else, are planning their family year-end celebrations and the thought that a government shutdown could ruin those plans is upsetting,” Tony Reardon, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, said recently. “Civil servants are not involved in the funding dispute yet they are the ones who suffer if it goes unresolved.”
Other union leaders over these past months have likewise lambasted lawmakers and the White House for past shutdowns and near-shutdowns, along the same lines.
Of course, not only unions but a majority of federal employees themselves—as shown in the annual Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey results, released earlier this month—decry the effects of shutdowns, with most feds expressing that they suffered negative effects from last winter’s partial shutdown.
​Will Congress and the White House—at the last minute—compromise enough to avoid another wasteful, damaging shutdown? Even passing a CR is tricky this year, as differences over the White House’s conduct and impeachment hearings could render the already polarized atmosphere even more so.

Federal employees continue to have the highest and lowest opinions of the same aspects of their workplaces, results of this year’s government-wide survey show, with slightly more positive views overall.
Once again, the most positive response to any question involved whether employees are willing to put in extra effort to get a job done, with 96 percent agreeing or strongly agreeing; 91 percent similarly said they are always looking for ways to do their job better and 90 percent said they consider their work important. Each has been unchanged, or within 1 percentage point different, for the last five years.
The next most strongly positive responses, each above 80 percent and also basically stable, involved whether employees like they kind of work they do, whether they know how it relates to the agency’s goals, whether they know what is expected of them on the job and whether their unit has the needed skills and knowledge.
Again at the low end were several performance-related questions: whether pay raises depend on how well employees perform their jobs (28 percent positive), whether steps are taken to deal with poor performers (34), whether differences in performance are recognized in a meaningful way (39), whether creativity and innovation are rewarded (44), and whether awards reflect performance (48). In each case that was up by a point or two over 2018 and several are up significantly over the last five surveys; in 2015 the positive response rates were 21, 28, 33, 37 and 40 percent, respectively.
In a new question asking what happens to poor performers in a work unit, 56 percent said those persons usually remain in the unit and continue to underperform; 17 percent said they remain but improve over time; and 10 percent said they leave for reasons including firing, transferring or quitting. The other 17 percent said there are no poor performers in their unit.