U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

61–080 CC WASHINGTON : 2000

LABOR-MANAGEMENT RELATIONS AT THE SOCIAL

SECURITY ADMINISTRATION

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SOCIAL SECURITY

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

JULY 22, 23, AND 24, 1998

Serial 105–96

Printed for the use of the Committee on Ways and Means

(

ii

COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS

BILL ARCHER, Texas, Chairman

PHILIP M. CRANE, Illinois

BILL THOMAS, California

E. CLAY SHAW, JR., Florida

NANCY L. JOHNSON, Connecticut

JIM BUNNING, Kentucky

AMO HOUGHTON, New York

WALLY HERGER, California

JIM MCCRERY, Louisiana

DAVE CAMP, Michigan

JIM RAMSTAD, Minnesota

JIM NUSSLE, Iowa

SAM JOHNSON, Texas

JENNIFER DUNN, Washington

MAC COLLINS, Georgia

ROB PORTMAN, Ohio

PHILIP S. ENGLISH, Pennsylvania

JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada

JON CHRISTENSEN, Nebraska

WES WATKINS, Oklahoma

J.D. HAYWORTH, Arizona

JERRY WELLER, Illinois

KENNY HULSHOF, Missouri

CHARLES B. RANGEL, New York

FORTNEY PETE STARK, California

ROBERT T. MATSUI, California

BARBARA B. KENNELLY, Connecticut

WILLIAM J. COYNE, Pennsylvania

SANDER M. LEVIN, Michigan

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland

JIM MCDERMOTT, Washington

GERALD D. KLECZKA, Wisconsin

JOHN LEWIS, Georgia

RICHARD E. NEAL, Massachusetts

MICHAEL R. MCNULTY, New York

WILLIAM J. JEFFERSON, Louisiana

JOHN S. TANNER, Tennessee

XAVIER BECERRA, California

KAREN L. THURMAN, Florida

A.L. SINGLETON, Chief of Staff

JANICE MAYS, Minority Chief Counsel

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SOCIAL SECURITY

JIM BUNNING, Kentucky, Chairman

SAM JOHNSON, Texas

MAC COLLINS, Georgia

ROB PORTMAN, Ohio

JON CHRISTENSEN, Nebraska

J.D. HAYWORTH, Arizona

JERRY WELLER, Illinois

KENNY HULSHOF, Missouri

BARBARA B. KENNELLY, Connecticut

RICHARD E. NEAL, Massachusetts

SANDER M. LEVIN, Michigan

JOHN S. TANNER, Tennessee

XAVIER BECERRA, California

Pursuant to clause 2(e)(4) of Rule XI of the Rules of the House, public hearing records

of the Committee on Ways and Means are also published in electronic form. The printed

hearing record remains the official version. Because electronic submissions are used to

prepare both printed and electronic versions of the hearing record, the process of converting

between various electronic formats may introduce unintentional errors or omissions. Such occurrences are inherent in the current publication process and should diminish as the process

is further refined.

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C O N T E N T S

Page

Advisory of July 15, 1998, announcing the hearing .............................................. 2

WITNESSES

Social Security Administration, Office of the Inspector General, Hon. James

G. Huse, Jr., Acting Inspector General; accompanied by Pamela J. Gardiner, Assistant Inspector General for Audit ..................................................... 6

Social Security Administration, John Reusing, Claims Authorizer, Division

of International Operations ................................................................................. 207

Social Security Administration, Jim Beckstrom, Computer Specialist, Office

of Systems ............................................................................................................. 211

Social Security Administration, Waco, TX, Jim Schampers, District Manager . 214

Social Security Administration, Tulsa, OK, Edwin M. Hardesty, District Manager ........................................................................................................................ 219

Social Security Administration, Paul D. Barnes, Deputy Commissioner for

Human Resources ................................................................................................ 249

American Federation of Government Employees, AFL–CIO:

National Council of SSA Field Operations Locals, Witold Skwierczynski ... 286

National Partnership Council, Wiltold Skwierczynski .................................. 286

American Federation of Government Employees Local 1923:

John Reusing .................................................................................................... 207

Jim Beckstrom .................................................................................................. 211

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LABOR-MANAGEMENT RELATIONS AT THE

SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION

THURSDAY, JULY 22, 1998

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SOCIAL SECURITY,

Washington, DC.

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m., in

room 1100, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Jim Bunning

(Chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding.

[The advisory announcing the hearing follows:]

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3

4

Chairman BUNNING. The Subcommittee will come to order.

Good morning. Members of this Subcommittee have before them

a report containing evidence of what I consider to be a serious and

ongoing abuse of tax dollars in the work force of the Social Security

Administration. The report comes from no less an authority than

the Inspector General of the Social Security Administration, a man

appointed to his post by President Clinton.

Let me be clear. Social Security is a sacred trust between the

American people and their government. When evidence of abuse is

discovered, it is our duty to pursue it. One of the best ways we can

save Social Security first is to root out any corruption, abuse, or

malfeasance that harms our Nation’s seniors and their ability to receive services from the Social Security Administration.

According to information provided by SSA to the Inspector General, there are 145 people on the public payroll at SSA who work

full time for labor unions. There are also 1,655 SSA employees who

spend up to 75 percent of their day on union activities. These people are excused from their duties as claim representatives, teleservice representatives, or claims authorizers. Instead of serving seniors, they serve unions.

Today, the IG will report a claim by the Social Security Adminis- tration that taxpayers spent $13.4 million in 1996 to pay union salaries, and $1.3 million for union office space. That $14.7 million

would pay one year’s worth of Social Security benefits for more

than 1,700 seniors. If that’s not worrisome enough, the IG concludes that no one in the government knows how many people really work for the unions, or how much money is actually spent to

support their activity, because SSA’s information is not reliable.

To make matters worse, the IG survey report indicates that onequarter of the SSA managers surveyed suspect abuse of time used

on union activity. While the union workers are supposed to be filing grievances and increasing agency productivity through labormanagement partnerships, in reality supervisors also have no idea

if their workers are engaged in authorized activity.

I understand that the American Federation of Government Employees challenged the legality of the IG’s review, and advised

union officials not to cooperate with the audit. Despite intervention

from the SSA’s Commissioner, the union never fully cooperated.

Tomorrow SSA employees will testify about union workers

spending their time in private sector jobs, engaging in personal

business, and participating in political activities all while they are

on the public payroll. These employees believe that they are hamstrung, because once someone is on union time, they are no longer

accountable to Social Security managers.

SSA workers need and deserve our support. These dedicated people believe that their ability to serve our Nation’s seniors, survivors, and the disabled is severely hampered by their inability to

control their work force.

I think it is outrageous and it’s wrong for people on the public

payroll to work for someone else. People who are paid by the taxpayers should work for the taxpayers. Instead, what we have here

is a bunch of no-shows, go-slows, and who-the-hell-knows.

It appears that the Social Security Administration has lost control of its work force, harming our ability to serve our senior citiVerDate 11-SEP-98 16:29 Mar 27, 2000 Jkt 061080 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 K:\HEARINGS\61080.TXT WAYS3 PsN: WAYS3
5

zens. We need to protect our seniors and we need to fix this problem.

To do that, I have invited the Commissioner of Social Security

to testify before our Subcommittee, and I’ve also invited representatives of labor to join us this week. When we have heard from all

of the parties involved, I look forward to working with the Members of this Subcommittee to clean up the problem.

When I played baseball, I helped start the Players Union. The

SSA Union performs an important service representing workers,

and I believe in their rights. But when evidence of fraud and abuse

exists, I hope no one will support looking the other way.

When it comes to protecting people who need Social Security,

there are no Republican beneficiaries or Democratic beneficiaries.

We are all in this together. I hope we can approach this in the

same nonpartisan manner as the Inspector General. We need to

protect the integrity of the Social Security and respect union rights,

while rooting out abuse in the workplace.

In the interest of time, it is our practice to dispense with opening

statements, except from the Ranking Democratic Member. All

Members are welcomed to submit statements for the record. I yield

to Congresswoman Kennelly for any statement she wishes to make.

Mrs. KENNELLY. Thank you, Chairman Bunning, and I would

like to tell those in the audience that this is a public hearing, that

we will be accepting testimony, and that the opinions we just heard

are not the only ones on this topic. The wonderful part of democracy in a bipartisan system is that you come together, sit shoulder

to shoulder, and have different opinions. And so, I will read my

statement as we open these hearings. It will continue, by the way,

for the next 3 days.

Today’s Subcommittee hearing examines labor-management relations at the Social Security Administration. I think it’s fair to say

that labor-management relations and employee morale at the Social Security Administration are better today than they have been

at any time during the previous decade.

Use of official union time was down in 1997 by almost 20 percent. Unfair labor practice charges by employees dropped by 36

percent from 1995 to 1997. All of this has occurred since 1993,

when President Clinton issued an Executive Order creating a partnership with Federal agency employees.

In January of this year, the Social Security Administration

issued a study evaluating the effectiveness of the labor-management partnership at that agency. I hold forth a copy of this study,

and hope that all those interested in this question take the time

to look at it. To my knowledge, this was the first ever evaluation

of partnership activities to be conducted by a Federal agency.

The report concludes that the partnership agreement has helped

to improve customer service and employee productivity. In addition

to improving SSA’s toll-free number service, it has improved productivity in such areas as reducing disability backlogs, redesigning

the disability process, and shifting workloads between SSA offices.

The Social Security Administration’s Office of the Inspector General has just completed three reports telling us about additional

systems which could be implemented at the Social Security AdminVerDate 11-SEP-98 16:29 Mar 27, 2000 Jkt 061080 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 K:\HEARINGS\61080.TXT WAYS3 PsN: WAYS3
6

istration to keep track of official time and partnership activities.

The report does not find any abuses in the official time system.

The Inspector General has simply said that he would like to see

better official time and auditing systems in place at the agency.

SSA is doing just that.

It already has in place a computerized system for reporting official time called OUTTS, and it is working on enhancements of that

system which will alert employees when they are within 20 percent

of exhausting their time, and which will identify active and inactive representatives.

While we would all like to see that system fully implemented as

soon as possible, I see nothing in the Inspector General’s report

which indicates that the OUTTS system is the wrong way to go.

In fact, given the current and continuing limitation on the Social

Security Administration’s budget, the OUTTS system seems to be

an efficient and effective way of auditing official time.

One of the essential elements of any effective business, including

Federal agencies is productive labor-management teamwork. I

think the Social Security Administration and the Clinton administration have taken major steps in that direction. These initiatives

have produced better labor-management relations than at any

other time in recent memory, and should continue to do so in the

time to come.

I welcome our witnesses, and thank the Chairman for giving me

the time to remark.

Chairman BUNNING. Thank you, Mrs. Kennelly.

Testifying today is Hon. James G. Huse, Jr., Acting Inspector

General from the Office of the Inspector General at the Social Security Administration. Mr. Huse will be accompanied by Pamela Gardiner, Assistant Inspector General for Audit, from the Office of Inspector General at the Social Security Administration.

If the witnesses would please stand as we will swear you in.

Please raise your right hand and respond.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. Huse, you may proceed.

Mrs. KENNELLY. Mr. Chairman.

Chairman BUNNING. Yes.

Mrs. KENNELLY. Do we intend to swear in all of the witnesses

who come before us the next 3 days?

Chairman BUNNING. I would suspect we will.

Mrs. KENNELLY. Well, I think if we swear in some, we should

swear in all. There’s always a question——

Chairman BUNNING. That’s fine.

Mrs. KENNELLY. OK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES G. HUSE, JR., ACTING INSPECTOR

GENERAL, OFFICE OF THE INSPECTOR GENERAL, SOCIAL

SECURITY ADMINISTRATION; ACCOMPANIED BY PAMELA J.

GARDINER, ASSISTANT INSPECTOR GENERAL FOR AUDIT

Mr. HUSE. Chairman Bunning and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to appear today. You have been

given my full statement for the record. I would like to summarize

our findings for you now.

7

In response to a request from this Subcommittee, we reviewed official time and partnership activities at the Social Security Administration as a follow-up to an earlier General Accounting Office report. We divided our work into four parts; an audit of official time

use, two surveys, and an evaluation of partnership activities.

Today, I would like to discuss three of these. I will not be discussing the second survey because it has not been released as yet.

During the review, 18 percent of the union representatives we

contacted chose not to cooperate, while 100 percent of the managers we contacted did cooperate. The response rate from our survey consisted of 52 percent of the union representatives and 85 percent of the managers, which limits the conclusiveness of the data

we received. Because of this, we caution against drawing broad

conclusions from the results of our reviews.

We conducted the audit to verify that official time at SSA for

union activities complied with relevant laws, regulations, and collective bargaining agreements. SSA reported that in fiscal year

1996, 481,945 hours were spent on official time activities. The cost

of these activities, including salaries and expenses, totaled $14.7

million.

We could not verify these data, because SSA did not have adequate records and controls at that time, to ensure that official time

was being used in compliance with applicable criteria. Further, the

data used to determine the cost of official time were unreliable.

SSA had recognized many of these issues before our review. As

a result, it had issued new guidance, and developed a new automated management information system that will hopefully correct

these problems.

We conducted a nationwide survey of union representatives and

managers to collect their observations concerning the use and management of official time for the American Federation of Government Employees Union Council 220 activities.

The responses to our questionnaires indicated the following:

Although most of the managers and union representatives stated

that they recorded official time as required, some union representatives did not always complete an official time form before using official time.

Almost half of the managers were not informed in writing who

represents the union in their office.

A number of the managers and union representatives we interviewed did not know how many bank hours—the amount of hours

authorized for use—were available, which created the potential for

exceeding bank time. Twenty-five percent of the managers who responded had suspicions or qualms about the abuse of official time.

Ninety-five percent of the managers responded that they understood where to call with official time issues, and that those offices

were helpful.

Our evaluation was conducted in response to this Subcommittee’s

request that we verify SSA’s assertions that SSA’s partnership activities had reduced grievance and unfair labor practice filings. We

also examined the extent of partnership activities; how partnership

results are measured, and how time devoted to partnership activities is tracked.

Our review found the following:

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The definition of partnership and related activities was unclear.

The inventory of partnership activities was questionable. SSA’s systems did not provide sufficient data to support a quantitative interpretation of the results or accomplishments from partnership. Both

the Social Security Administration and AFGE took exception to the

conclusions from our review of partnership. Thank you.

[The prepared statement follows. Attachments may be found as

follows: Final Report—Use of Official Time for Union Activities at

the Social Security Administration, http://www.ssa.gov/oig/

adobepdf/72013.pdf; Partnership Activities at the Social Security

Administration, http://www.ssa.gov/oig/adobepdf/72023.pdf; and

Council 220 Union Representative and Manager Observations on

the Use and Management of Official Time at SSA, http://

www.ssa.gov/oig/adobepdf/72002.pdf.]

Statement of Hon. James G. Huse, Jr., Acting Inspector General, Social

Security Administration

Chairman Bunning and members of the Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me

to appear today to discuss our reviews of official time and Partnership activities at

the Social Security Administration (SSA).

In response to a request from this Subcommittee, we reviewed official time and

Partnership activities at SSA as a follow up to an earlier General Accounting Office

report. Although our interviews with over 100 managers and union representatives

were revealing, we encountered a delay in obtaining necessary information.

Initially, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) advised SSA

employees not to cooperate with the reviews. We ultimately received the information

when the then-Acting Commissioner of Social Security mediated an end to the impasse. As part of this process, we agreed to make some minor modifications to our

survey.

During the reviews, 18 percent of the union representatives we contacted chose

not to cooperate, while 100 percent of the managers we contacted did cooperate. The

response rate from our survey consisted of 52 percent of the union representatives

and 85 percent of the managers, which limits the conclusiveness of the data we received. Because of this, we caution against drawing broad conclusions from the results of our reviews.

We divided our work into four parts: an audit of official time use, two surveys,

and an evaluation of Partnership activities. Today, I would like to discuss three of

these. I will not be discussing the second survey because it has not yet been released.

We conducted the audit to verify that the official time at SSA for union activities

complied with relevant laws, regulations, and collective bargaining agreements. SSA

defines official time as ‘‘time during which an employee otherwise would be performing Agency-assigned work, but the employee is otherwise authorized by law, regulation, or negotiated agreement to spend time representing union and/or bargaining

unit employees.’’ SSA reported that, in FY 1996, 481,945 hours were spent on official time activities. The cost of these activities, including salaries and expenses, totaled $14.7 million. We could not verify these data because SSA did not have adequate records and controls at that time to ensure that official time was being used

in compliance with applicable criteria. Further, the data used to determine the cost

of official time were unreliable. We also found indications that SSA’s internal controls needed to be strengthened so that

• official time was limited to union representatives,

• the number of authorized union representatives was in compliance with collective bargaining agreement criteria,

• official time was used for appropriate activities and for appropriate amounts of

time, and

• all allegations of misuse of official time were resolved.

SSA had recognized many of these issues before our review. As a result, SSA

issued new guidance and developed a new automated management information system that will hopefully correct these problems.

We conducted a nation-wide survey of union representatives and managers to collect their observations concerning the use and management of official time for the

AFGE’s union Council 220 activities. Council 220 represents employees in SSA’s

9

field offices and teleservice centers. The responses to our questionnaires indicated

the following.

• Although most of the managers and union representatives stated that they recorded official time as required, some union representatives did not always complete

an official time form before using official time.

• Almost half of the managers were not informed in writing who represents the

union in their office.

• A number of the managers and union representatives we interviewed did not

know how many bank hours (the amount of hours authorized for use) were available, which created the potential for exceeding bank time.

• Twenty-five percent of the managers who responded had suspicions or qualms

about the abuse of official time.

• Ninety-five percent of the managers responded that they understood where to

call with official time issues and that those offices were helpful.

Our evaluation was conducted in response to this Subcommittee’s request that we

verify SSA’s assertions that SSA’s Partnership activities had reduced grievance and

unfair labor practice filings. We also examined the extent of Partnership activities,

how Partnership results are measured, and how time devoted to Partnership activities is tracked. When we began our evaluation, SSA had neither conducted its own

evaluation of Partnership nor developed an inventory of its Partnership activities.

In July 1997, SSA established the Partnership Evaluation Team to design and conduct an evaluation of SSA’s Partnership activities. Because of this, we revised our

approach so that we did not duplicate SSA’s efforts. Our review found the following.

• The definition of Partnership and related activities was unclear.

• The inventory of Partnership activities was questionable.

• SSA’s systems did not provide sufficient data to support a quantitative interpretation of the results or accomplishments from Partnership.

Both SSA and AFGE took exception to the conclusions from our review of Partnership.

In conclusion, based on our recommendations and its earlier actions, SSA has

strengthened its procedures and controls to ensure that official time is used appropriately, that allegations of suspected abuse are resolved, and that official time data

are complete and accurate. We also recommended that SSA develop a formal system

for identifying Partnership accomplishments and resultant cost savings. Neither

SSA nor AFGE agree with this recommendation.

starting the questioning, and we’re going to limit it to 5 minutes,

Chairman BUNNING. Thank you, Mr. Huse. Let me start out by

f

and we go around as many times as necessary.

You indicated that the American Federation of Government Employees initially advised SSA employees not to cooperate. How long

did this problem go on, and how was it resolved?

Ms. GARDINER. I’ll answer that question.

Chairman BUNNING. All right.

Ms. GARDINER. It caused about a 4-month delay. We sent out our

surveys in June of 1997, and shortly thereafter the AFGE Council

220 president sent out an e-mail message to all council members

requesting that they not complete the survey. And thereafter,

union representatives refused to be interviewed, and refused to

complete the survey form.

So, on June 26th we asked the then Acting Commissioner, Callahan, for his assistance in obtaining cooperation; and his senior

managers did get involved and helped us. And after extensive negotiations, the union did advise its members to cooperate, and to complete the survey, except for four questions that they found objectionable. And that message went out in September.

Chairman BUNNING. In other words, when did the second mailing without the four questions go out?

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Ms. GARDINER. Well, actually we never removed the four questions——

Chairman BUNNING. They just didn’t answer them?

Ms. GARDINER. That’s correct. We agreed that we would consider

that to be adequate cooperation, if they would complete all but the

four questions. And the second survey went out in October.

Chairman BUNNING. What was their reason? Just the fact that

they found them objectionable?

Ms. GARDINER. Yes, that’s what they shared with us.

Chairman BUNNING. In your testimony, you stated that you

made some minor modifications to one of the surveys. Was there

anything other than the four questions that was objected to? Was

there anything else?

Ms. GARDINER. No, that’s correct. We actually did not modify it;

we just simply informed them that we had agreed with the union

that they would not have to answer the four questions, and we listed those questions for them.

Chairman BUNNING. Now, I’m going to read what I thought were

the four questions, and I want a verification.

‘‘How long have you been a union representative?’’ Was that one

of them?

Ms. GARDINER. Yes.

Chairman BUNNING. ‘‘Do you hold any executive officer position

in your union?’’ Is that another one?

Mr. HUSE. Yes.

Chairman BUNNING. ‘‘What are typical union activities for you,

and what portion of your official time do you spend on each?’’

‘‘What administrative support does the union pay for, and how

much does it cost?’’

Are those the four questions?

Ms. GARDINER. Yes, they are.

Chairman BUNNING. SSA reported that union representatives used 481,945 hours of official time, at a cost of $14.7 million for fiscal year 1996.

Now, I know 1997 has been brought up, and some of those times

and costs are down. How does SSA compute the cost of official

time?

Ms. GARDINER. They take the total number of hours that have

been reported as being used for official time, and then they multiply that by an average salary for all SSA employees, which is

about $19 an hour. And then they add in benefits and overhead

rate, and they come up with a total figure for that.

In addition to that, they also include union-related office space

expenses, telephone, travel, as a minor administrative cost.

Chairman BUNNING. You said that you couldn’t verify the

481,945 hours reported by SSA. How big of an error did you detect

in this?

Ms. GARDINER. We weren’t able to draw any conclusion on the

total error rate for all of the hours, because the controls in place

were insufficient to provide us with complete information for the

nationwide figure. But what we did do, was we looked at two components, and we looked at all of the hours they charged for the fiscal year 1996. And for one of them we found a discrepancy of 7,535

hours that were over-reported; that was in headquarters; and in

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the Office of Hearings and Appeals in Falls Church, we found that

they had a discrepancy of 6,981 hours where they over-reported.

Chairman BUNNING. What were the causes of the discrepancies,

and were they able to be reconciled?

Ms. GARDINER. Most of the problems were that there weren’t

time reports.

Chairman BUNNING. No time reports?

Ms. GARDINER. Right. Missing time reports. And they were able

to resolve most of the hours for headquarters, but for the Office of

Hearings and Appeals, they were not.

Chairman BUNNING. What are examples of appropriate time

charges for official time?

Ms. GARDINER. It’s generally meetings, and discussions, negotiations on labor-management relations issues, or contract issues,

working on grievances, arbitration, things like that.

Chairman BUNNING. Mrs. Kennelly will inquire.

Mrs. KENNELLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Huse, if you were right now the Commissioner of Social Security, and had SSA’s limited resources, what would you do to respond to this report that we have in front of us today?

Mr. HUSE. Well, I would take the system that SSA already has,

the OUTTS system, and ensure, first of all, that it works, and that

it works well.

The OUTTS system is new, but it is an automated system, and

basically the best way for SSA to manage this type of time is

through an automated information system. So, compliance with

that, ensuring that it’s used universally across SSA, that’s what I

would do.

Mrs. KENNELLY. So you would automate?

Mr. HUSE. Well, they have a new automated system that they’re

deploying now, but I’d ensure that it works, and works well.

Mrs. KENNELLY. No other changes? Well, we’ve got a big book

here.

Mr. HUSE. You’re talking about monitoring official time?

Mrs. KENNELLY. What I’m saying is that we have these suggestions, and it’s one thing to give suggestions. Now, I’m putting you

in the position of carrying them out, and I’m trying to find out if

in fact it would be expensive to do these things. The bottom line

is, I want to know if it would cost money, or would we save money,

if we carried out this report. I mean, that’s why we do these reports.

Ms. GARDINER. Yes. If I may add a little bit more.

The OUTTS system currently only covers field offices and Teleservice Center employees, so expanding that system also would be

useful.

First, generally improving the tracking—they also should probably do a better job of when suspected abuse is reported, of getting

back to the managers, and providing some feedback on what the

resolution of that was.

And probably the other piece would be to just better define partnership, so that people know how to charge time appropriately as

well.

12

Mrs. KENNELLY. If I read what you’re saying, you’re saying that

you’re already doing what the report suggests—you just have to do

it more quickly, or more efficiently?

Mr. HUSE. They have to do—they already—as I said in my testimony, the SSA has come to some of these conclusions itself, and

had developed, and is deploying the OUTTS system. But they need

to make that universally used across SSA. It isn’t right now.

Mrs. KENNELLY. So, it’s implementation that we’re talking about?

Mr. HUSE. It’s implementation. Secondly, and the other key

point, is where there are instances of suspected abuse, they need

to get the information back to the original complainer. We found

that some of the managers were confused as to the resolution of

some of these activities.

Mrs. KENNELLY. Well, let me just ask one more question, now

that you’ve brought this up.

You state in your testimony that some managers were suspicious

about the abuse of official time. Does the OUTTS system provide

a procedure for dealing with this kind of suspicion?

Mr. HUSE. No, no. The OUTTS system is merely an accounting

system. There is a free-standing system, where managers who suspect abuses of official time, report those to the appropriate office

in SSA, which is the Office of Labor—OLMER is the acronym, for

the Office of Labor, Management, and Employee Relations. And

they act as the entity inside SSA to resolve these issues.

Mrs. KENNELLY. Well, have you found any patterns of abuse that

you could follow to get this done quicker, or are we really talking

about something that really isn’t there to any great extent? That

is, things are moving along rather well, we’ve seen improvement,

and this is much to do about not too much?

Mr. HUSE. Our survey and reports are limited to the samples

that we used in coming up with these findings. We can’t extrapolate from that to say that it’s anything more than what we’ve reported in these audits.

Mrs. KENNELLY. Thank you, sir.

Chairman BUNNING. Let me just interject. Maybe tomorrow, Mrs.

Kennelly, you can ask the managers who will be here that exact

question, and maybe they’ll be able to enlighten us a little more,

because the managers will be here tomorrow.

Mrs. KENNELLY. I’m trying to find out if we really have a real

problem here. I read my statement, and it seems we’ve seen a good

deal of improvement over the last decade. Then I look at the report,

and I see that things have improved. It seems to me that things

are in motion, and if we let them go forward, and everybody tries

to move a little more quickly and with a little more efficiency, we

would resolve this problem.

Do you think I’m right?

Mr. HUSE. Well, we don’t disagree with you. We think that managing the issue with the tools that are in place would be very good;

but we have to ensure that the communications end of it works

also, and that’s where we found perhaps some room for improvement.

Mrs. KENNELLY. Thank you, Inspector.

Chairman BUNNING. Mr. Collins would inquire.

Mr. COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

13

As a followup to Mrs. Kennelly’s question about resources, is

there an established amount of resource available for union activities within the Social Security Administration?

Ms. GARDINER. There are hours called bank hours that are defined in the collective bargaining agreement.

Mr. COLLINS. Is there an established appropriated figure for

union activities in the Social Security Administration? I believe the

answer to that is no.

Mr. HUSE. OK.

Mr. COLLINS. Under Public Law 15078, ‘‘provided for the reimbursement of the cost, with interest, from the general fund for

union activities, but no cap on the cost.’’

In one sense of the word, there’s really no limited resource for

union activities; just a report to verify the cost of union activities.

Mr. HUSE. Correct.

Mr. COLLINS. In your summary report, you mention the response

rate from the survey, consisting of 52 percent of union representatives and 85 percent of the managers, which limits your conclusions.

Because of this, you cautioned against broad conclusion from the

results of your review. What would be the narrow conclusion of

your review?

Mr. HUSE. The narrow conclusion would be limited to the findings we bring to the Subcommittee from our review work.

Mr. COLLINS. And those are?

Mr. HUSE. Those are that we found——

Mr. COLLINS. On page 3 of your summary?

Mr. HUSE. Yes, sir.

Mr. COLLINS. That the definition of partnership related to activities is unclear.

Mr. HUSE. Correct.

Mr. COLLINS. The inventory of partnership activities was questionable.

Mr. HUSE. Correct.

Mr. COLLINS. And that the Social Security Administration’s system did not provide sufficient data to support the quantitative interpretation of the results or accomplishments from partnerships.

Mr. HUSE. That’s correct, sir.

Mr. COLLINS. You did not go through your last paragraph in your

summary; which you said, ‘‘In conclusion, based on our recommendations and its earlier actions . . .’’

It seems as though, since you began your work, Social Security

has taken some positive actions toward their problems.

Mr. HUSE. They have.

Mr. COLLINS. That Social Security has strengthened its procedures and control; that the allegations of suspected abuse are resolved; and official time data are complete and accurate.

You also recommend to the Social Security Administration the

development of a formal system for identifying partnership accomplishments, and resultant cost savings. That was a recommendation.

Mr. HUSE. Yes, sir.

Mr. COLLINS. But neither Social Security nor the union agreed

with this recommendation.

14

Mr. HUSE. That’s correct. They do not.

Mr. COLLINS. What was their purpose for not agreeing?

Mr. HUSE. In their view, they have adequate definitions of partnership that they work with, and that they believe——

Mr. COLLINS. We can’t hear you. Wait a minute. It seems as

though we have union employees in the Longworth Building.

[Laughter.]

That was their objection, I reckon. Go ahead with your reasoning.

Mr. HUSE. In their view, they believe they have a good inventory

of activities that come under partnership; however, they don’t agree

that partnership can be defined; that the definition has to be broad

by the very nature of labor and management relations. We believe

that it needs to be defined in order to quantify it, and that’s what

divides us on this issue.

Mr. COLLINS. But were you asking them to define partnership,

or were you asking them to come up with a way to list their accomplishments and the result of cost savings? Which were you asking

them to do?

Mr. HUSE. We’re asking them both, because the definition needs

to come before we can quantify what it is they do. And this is an

area where we came right out to the margins of our role as factfinders. We didn’t attempt here to impose any kind of a definition

on labor-management relations, nor did we take a view of what is

right or wrong in that regard. That would have been outside the

scope of our responsibilities.

Mr. COLLINS. I’ve got about 30 seconds left.

Chairman BUNNING. Go right ahead.

Mr. COLLINS. You will be going back. Do you expect to find positive results, a defining of a partnership, and the accomplishments

in the cost savings?

Mr. HUSE. Not in terms of partnership, unless there is some attempt made to define what partnership is. For us, as a mechanism

to look at partnership, we need to have something to measure, sir,

and that’s what we didn’t have. We don’t have a definition with

which to start this analysis.

Mr. COLLINS. Was not the partnership directive of an Executive

order? Should not that Executive order have defined the partnership between the union and the administration?

Mr. HUSE. It did give a broad definition, yes, in the President’s

Executive order.

Mr. COLLINS. Well, evidently, they’re not even accepting the

broad definition of the Executive order, if they will not come up

with a definition of partnership.

Ms. GARDINER. Part of where we ran into difficulties was that we

initially used that as our definition, what was in the Executive

order. And when the Social Security Administration did its inventory and its evaluation, that it didn’t really define to the employees

who were submitting their ideas, partnership. And so they got a

wide variety of activities.

But then, what made it more difficult was, when the agency defined what partnership was for purposes of time reporting, they

came up with a different definition. And that’s when it became——

Chairman BUNNING. The gentleman’s time has expired.

15

Mr. Levin.

Mr. LEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I think we are all in

agreement that, as you said in the end of your statement, we need

to protect the integrity of Social Security and respect union rights,

while rooting out abuse in the workplace. Abuses should clearly be

rooted out. So, let me ask you a bit about the workplace.

Is the partnership concept one that is embraced in private industry?

Mr. HUSE. I believe that it is, but I can’t speak to it with any

authority, sir.

Mr. LEVIN. Have you ever looked at what’s happening in private

industry?

Mr. HUSE. Just as a citizen. I mean, I understand the concept.

I understand it.

Mr. LEVIN. I suggest someday you come with me to a Big Three

plant, not GM at the moment.

The concept of union representation, do you know whether that

concept of allowing employees in private industry to spend time in

union representation—this could be in a nonunion plant, in group

representation—does that also exist in private industry?

Mr. HUSE. Yes, it does, sir.

Mr. LEVIN. Do you have any idea what was the pattern before

1993, or 1994, or 1995, in terms of the level of union representation? Do you have any comparative data at all?

Mr. HUSE. We only can compare the data that we’ve acquired

since the partnership has been put in place, since the 1993——

Mr. LEVIN. But there was union representation before the Executive order, right?

Mr. HUSE. That’s correct.

Mr. LEVIN. And, have you looked at the data for periods before

that?

Mr. HUSE. Yes.

Mr. LEVIN. You have. What does it show?

Ms. GARDINER. In terms of the numbers of union reps, or in

terms of——

Mr. LEVIN. Well, in terms of hours, numbers?

Ms. GARDINER. I don’t have it in front of me, but I believe that

the hours and the numbers of union reps actually increased a little

bit after partnership, and I believe that was in the GAO report.

Mr. LEVIN. A small amount?

Ms. GARDINER. I don’t recall.

Mr. LEVIN. Did you make any effort to compare now and then?

Ms. GARDINER. No, we did not.

Mr. HUSE. No.

Mr. LEVIN. Isn’t that relevant?

Ms. GARDINER. Well, the main thing that we were looking at was

the accounting of the time versus the appropriateness of the time,

or the appropriateness of the number. We didn’t enter into that

sort of value——

Chairman BUNNING. Could the gentleman yield?

Mr. LEVIN. Yes.

Chairman BUNNING. There is a measure of union activity, starting in 1993, prior to right when it started, until the current date.

Mr. LEVIN. I’m talking about before 1993.

16

Chairman BUNNING. Oh, OK.

Mr. HUSE. That was outside the scope of our review, sir.

Mr. LEVIN. You don’t think it’s relevant to compare now with 8

or 9 years ago?

Mr. HUSE. Well, that wasn’t our charge from the Subcommittee,

and we didn’t look at that.

Mr. LEVIN. Let me read you a statement from the opening statement. This is Mr. Bunning’s statement.

After he says, ‘‘People who are paid by the taxpayers, should

work with the taxpayers.’’ ‘‘Instead, what we have here is a bunch

of no-shows, go-slows, and who-the-hell-knows.’’

Do you think that characterizes the work of most of the people

who are within the definition of representatives who are dealing

with labor-management issues?

Mr. HUSE. We didn’t look at the issue to—we only bring to the

Subcommittee our findings, sir. We don’t make—nowhere in our reports does it say anything that affirms what you just said.

Mr. LEVIN. There’s nothing in your report that affirms what I

just read?

Mr. HUSE. When you’re talking about making a universal judgment on labor-management issues at Social Security, no, they do

not. Our reviews are limited to the facts that I spoke to in my summary.

Mr. LEVIN. So, your report you don’t think would substantiate

that conclusion?

Mr. HUSE. We didn’t do any work to look at the philosophical aspects of labor and management relations at Social Security, nor to

get into that area of policy at all.

Mr. LEVIN. OK

Chairman BUNNING. I’d like to enter into the record for Mr. Levin’s statement, Expenditures for SSA Union Activity from 1990 to

1995. This is prior to the Partnership Act.

Starting in 1990, there was $6.2 million; 1991, $6.3; 1992, $6.2;

1993, $6 million. Then the Partnership Act was instituted by Executive order. In 1994 it went to $9.1; in 1995 it went to $11.0; in

1996, you have that number, it went to $14.7; and 1997, for the

first time after we got a hold of a little bit of it, it went down to

$12.4 in 1997.

So, for the record.

The next gentleman is Mr. Johnson.

Mr. JOHNSON of Texas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Is it true that under U.S. Code, Title V, that, ‘‘Any employee representing an exclusive representative in negotiation of the collective bargaining agreement under this chapter shall be authorized

official time for such purposes, including . . .’’?

In other words, ‘‘The number of employees,’’ it says, ‘‘for whom

official time is authorized shall not exceed the number of individuals designated as representing the agency.’’

Is that a true statement? Is that the law?

Mr. HUSE. That’s pretty accurate, yes, sir.

Mr. JOHNSON of Texas. Did you look at the agency with regard

to that, and determine how many employees then that would affect;

and what is the number that you concluded that they should have

17

representing the union that work directly for the Social Security

Administration?

Ms. GARDINER. We didn’t look at it in total to make a determination of exactly how many they should have nationwide, but we did

do it in selected offices, and headquarters, and others. And we did

find one instance in headquarters where they were authorized to

have 11 assistant chief stewards, but in fact the bargaining agreement showed that they should have only had 7.

I believe that’s your question; that in that particular instance

they had more union representatives than they should have.

Mr. JOHNSON of Texas. Did they take them off of the free time

when you all told them that?

Ms. GARDINER. I’m not sure.

Mr. JOHNSON of Texas. Did you ask them to? Is that part of your

report?

Ms. GARDINER. Well, we put it in the report, but truthfully, I’m

not sure.

Mr. JOHNSON of Texas. You don’t know if they’ve acted on it yet

or not, is that the answer?

Ms. GARDINER. Actually, we just told them that they need to

monitor that more closely, and abide by the——

Mr. JOHNSON of Texas. How do you account for the fact that the

Social Security Administration has allowed, according to you, employees who used official time to go from 1,800 to 2,144 from 1996

to 1997? Why would they do that if there’s a specific limit on who

can do union activity on official time?

Mr. HUSE. In the course of these reviews, we made recommendations that they comport with the law, and that they have the appropriate number of representatives.

We stop short of going beyond that into looking at the reasons

why, or why not, that these unofficial representatives——

Mr. JOHNSON of Texas. You stated in your report that the agency

officials, the management per se, didn’t understand the law or

didn’t pay any attention to it? Which is it that you discovered?

Mr. HUSE. Well, I think that particular issue of understanding

was a statement we make in our reports pertaining to Social Security’s managers themselves, who really don’t understand the law,

and don’t know how to apply the rules. They’re first-line managers,

and that’s where some of the confusion in official time reporting——

Mr. JOHNSON of Texas. But as the Chairman indicated earlier,

they stonewalled you for a while. Do you attribute that to ignorance, or do you attribute it to the fact that these union activities

were being overlooked?

Ms. GARDINER. There are certain agreements where the language

is a little bit unclear as to how many union representatives they

should have. So some of it could be that it was unclear, and other

incidents were that they simply weren’t monitoring it that closely

to identify it when it occurred.

Mr. JOHNSON of Texas. OK. On a different subject, I understand

you’re familiar with a case regarding the continuing practice of

granting various amount of time of excused absences to bargaining

unit employees at the end of the year holiday season, for purposes

18

of Christmas shopping. And that you also got involved in investigating fraud in the workplace involving a travel voucher.

Can you explain those two things to me?

Mr. HUSE. I can, sir. It is true. We did investigate an instance

where an employee, who was a union representative, presented a

voucher to the agency for reimbursement for his mileage for some

activities that he claimed he was conducting appropriately, and we

found that it was a fraud. I have to add that this union official was

disciplined by the agency for that.

Mr. JOHNSON of Texas. But he’s still working for the agency, isn’t

that true, and still working on union activities?

Mr. HUSE. That is correct, he still is.

Mr. JOHNSON of Texas. Thank you.

Chairman BUNNING. The gentleman’s time has expired.

Mr. Neal will inquire.

Mr. NEAL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Huse——

Mr. HUSE. Yes, sir?

Mr. NEAL [continuing]. Let met try to provide some context,

based on my experience as a former mayor, who had to bargain directly with 36 different bargaining units, and ask if any of the following practices would be deemed unusual:

Oftentimes, particularly at the critical stages of negotiations,

when the unions requested a direct opportunity to speak to me,

rather than the bargaining team that had been assembled, and we

knew were down the home stretch of negotiations, it would not be

unusual for me to be sitting across the table from a patrolman with

a uniform on, and a helmet beside him.

It would not be unusual for a fireman—a fire person today—for

a fireman, fire person, to be sitting across the table from me in full

uniform. A sanitation worker would sit there with a uniform on.

And any of us whoever campaigned at a plant, it would not be unusual for the steward to stand outside the plant with us, introduce

us to the employees, and then go inside, once the clock had been

punched, and accept the grievances that had been offered by the

employees or others.

Do you find any of those patterns to be unusual?

Mr. HUSE. Not at all.

Mr. NEAL. That’s fairly common in municipalities across the

country, and even in the private sector; the steward is given time

off; because of what? The steward is given time off because they

have successfully bargained that as part of the agreement——

Mr. HUSE. That’s correct.

Mr. NEAL [continuing]. That management has accepted as an inducement to improve morale in the workplace.

Now, do you find anything that I’ve offered here to be unusual?

Mr. HUSE. Not at all, sir.

Mr. NEAL. Is it common practice?

Mr. HUSE. That’s correct.

Mr. NEAL. Fairly common practice.

Now, with the complaint that was raised by Mr. Johnson here,

about employees that might have been given time off to do Christmas shopping. Now, that was bargained, I assume.

Mr. HUSE. It was bargained, that’s correct.

19

Mr. NEAL. OK. So, it’s the job of management in that instance

if they think that there’s been a pattern of abuse that has been developed in a previous contract, to go back and what?

Ms. GARDINER. Rebargain.

Mr. HUSE. Rebargain——

Mr. NEAL. Rebargain it, to negotiate it.

I mean, many of the best companies that I know of are those

companies where management and the work force not only trust,

but like each other. The best managers that I had when I was

mayor, the best department heads that I had were often those who

could accept the testimony that the employees trusted their judgment to interpret the final package.

Now, is that unusual?

Mr. HUSE. It’s not, sir. We were very careful in the conduct of

these reviews and surveys not to get into any kind of value judgment on the efficacy of labor and management relations. That was

not our intention, nor did we ever cross that boundary.

This is strictly about accounting for time, and methodologies for

doing that. And then establishing specific internal controls so that

time can be accounted for. That’s all this is about. We did not look

at labor and management issues at all. That would have been way

outside our charge.

Mr. NEAL. The simple point that I try to drive home here, is that

somehow it’s being suggested in this setting that there has been an

unusual practice; when the truth is, the best way to air grievances

in the workplace is to have a work force that through organized activities, if that’s what they choose, or unorganized activities, if

that’s what they choose, that is able to voice those grievances to

management in a forum that management has bargained and accepted.

Would you——

Mr. HUSE. I think that’s a good thing.

Mr. NEAL. You think that’s a good thing. OK.

Ms. Gardiner, would you care to say anything?

Ms. GARDINER. No.

Mr. NEAL. No?

Ms. GARDINER. I would agree.

Mr. NEAL. OK. Thank you very much.

Mr. HUSE. You’re welcome.

Chairman BUNNING. Let me just suggest to the gentleman from

Massachusetts, we had something in the private sector that we all

seemed to vote for on the floor of the House called the Team Act,

and kind of set that up in the private sector, exactly the same situation that you’re talking about, and they agree with you on. And

unfortunately, it didn’t get anywhere. It passed the House, but

never got past the Senate.

What I’m saying is, it’s not a usual practice. I have never had

a team steward, or whoever, go outside—for instance, General Electric Appliance Park in Louisville, Kentucky, and introduce me to

anyone. Or I never had that same——

Mr. NEAL. You keep supporting the Team Act; you can be sure

you won’t be doing that——

Chairman BUNNING. You can bet your life—good legislation. I

continue to support it. I never had that same union steward go into

20

the plant and introduce me down the line. To the contrary, it would

be very unusual if that occurred.

Mr. NEAL. I think that what I meant was that the fellow would

stand outside and introduce you to the employees, punch the clock,

go in, and then handle legitimate grievances. I didn’t suggest for

one second that at that point that you were inside the plant, and

the steward was taking you around to some unusual duty.

Typically, when you visit a plant, my experience has been that

management and the union take you around. And you can always

tell a good company, and a happy company, where the two sides

are not pulling you aside to say, let me tell you about those other

SOBs on the other side.

Chairman BUNNING. I can get you a plant in northern Kentucky,

by one of the Fortune 500 companies, that had a union representative and a management representative, and they were working

under the team concept that we tried to get passed in the Congress.

The gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Weller.

Mr. WELLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think I’d like to direct

my question to Mr. Huse, and of course trying to bring things into

perspective.

But I’m a supporter of collective bargaining, as I think most of

us are, and at the same time I think our first priority is protecting

the tax dollar, and the interest of taxpayers. And I’m concerned

when I see that over 2,100 employees, at an expense of over $12

million was spent by taxpayers. And particularly, as we think

about the impact on the Social Security Trust Fund of this type of

action, was spent solely on union activities. And that’s pretty high

priced—over 2,100 employees at over $12 million.

And we’ve been talking a little bit about official time, which is

taxpayer time. I think it shouldn’t be called official time; it should

be called taxpayer time, where someone is performing certain activities at the expense of the taxpayer, and in this case not related

to the responsibilities of the Social Security Administration.

In looking at your report, Mr. Huse, and we were talking about

at what level of abuse of taxpayer time is acceptable, and whether

or not that abuse of taxpayer time is part of a collective bargaining

agreement. I think it’s stated somewhere in your report that somewhere around 1 out of 4 managers, or 25 percent of managers suspected that there was abuse of taxpayer time.

Is that true? Is that the case, according to your report?

Mr. HUSE. That’s correct.

Mr. WELLER. And is that of the people we contacted?

Mr. HUSE. Correct.

Mr. WELLER. And is that comparing the private sector to the taxpayer finance sector? Is 25 percent, that level of abuse, is that acceptable, or is that an area we should be concerned about?

Mr. HUSE. I don’t disagree with your concern, but I can’t speak

to what the public acceptance of that might be at all.

Mr. WELLER. And there are some who think that the public

might accept a level of 25 percent of managers feeling that taxpayer time is being abused. Some would feel that’s acceptable? Do

you believe there’s anyone out there who feels that’s acceptable?

21

Mr. HUSE. No, these were managers that had suspicions or

qualms about these abuses of official time from their perspective.

We did nothing in our survey to go beyond their suspicions or

qualms to confirm or deny these allegations.

Mr. WELLER. And, of course, Mr. Johnson I think first brought

up a situation where on taxpayer time employees in Boston would

go Christmas shopping, on taxpayer time. And the argument for

saying this is a good practice, is something that we should do, is

because it accommodates those employees who would rather shop

on less busy days, while everyone is working?

Mr. HUSE. Again, sir, we heard of that incidence, however, we

did not determine the value of any of these collective bargaining——

Mr. WELLER. Sure. And I’m not asking you to make a judgment,

but obviously you identified an area of abuse of the taxpayer,

where they were shopping for Christmas on taxpayer time during

the work day.

How many employees in Boston participated in this—my understanding is it went on for 20 years, and the union felt that they

should continue. In fact, according to your report, I believe it’s a

practice that’s continuing through 1998, which is this year.

How many employees have the privilege of going shopping on

taxpayer time?

Mr. HUSE. We’re not exactly sure of the number, but it would be

the number of employees that are covered by that bargaining

agreement in Region 1, which is the Boston region.

Mr. WELLER. And then were these employees expected to come

in and make up the time somewhere else, or they were just given

a half day off at taxpayer expense to go Christmas shopping?

Mr. HUSE. We only know of the practice and the agreement. We

did not look into the details of that particular——

Mr. WELLER. You don’t know how widespread this abuse is,

whether or not it goes on in Chicago or anywhere else?

Mr. HUSE. Well, again, sir, I’m careful not to call it abuse, because this is part of an agreement. I have to be very careful in my

role as the Inspector General, not to make these value judgments

on what is or what is not appropriate.

Mr. WELLER. If I’m down at the VFW in Morris, Illinois on Union

Street, and I would explain to them, do you realize that employees

of the Social Security Administration at taxpayer expense are going

shopping for Christmas while you’re working. Now, they would say,

gee, that’s wrong. And, I mean, that’s just common sense.

Let me ask this here: There were some employees—union officials—who were on taxpayer payroll. Tell me if these are true

abuses that you identified in your report; that a union representative frequently used official time, would be gone for most the day.

The representative simply returned to the office at the end of the

day, and then work overtime, claiming overtime.

Is that true that that abuse occurred, according to your records?

Mr. HUSE. These are instances that were reported to us by managers during our survey. We did not conduct any investigation of

any of these instances whatsoever.

Mr. WELLER. Another one here. Union official spends most of his

day playing on the Internet. He plays games, chats with other peoVerDate 11-SEP-98 16:29 Mar 27, 2000 Jkt 061080 PO 00000 Frm 00024 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 K:\HEARINGS\61080.TXT WAYS3 PsN: WAYS3
22

ple in general, and does things not related to union, or Social Security Administration business.

Is that another item that you identified in your report?

Mr. HUSE. That’s what was reported to us by the managers.

Chairman BUNNING. The gentleman’s time has expired.

Mr. WELLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Clearly there’s abuse

here.

Chairman BUNNING. The gentleman from Missouri.

Mr. HULSHOF. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You mentioned that

the information as is practiced is through surveys through the

mail, and it’s difficult to verify the information. But clearly, I

would suppose you see this as valuable information?

Mr. HUSE. In the context of what we were trying to do, yes, it’s

of value. Because it indicates and affirms this issue of suspicions

or qualms about official time, and the confusion about it.

Mr. HULSHOF. As you know, this is the first in a couple of days

of hearings on this particular issue, and anticipating what may

come in future days, it’s my expectation the Social Security Administration will talk about their inability to monitor the union’s use

of official time, because they’re hampered by a series of arbitrator

and Federal labor relations authority decisions.

Can you help clarify that for me, explain those circumstances?

Mr. HUSE. Yes, sir. It is a definite problem for them. There are

a number of FLRA decisions and collective bargaining agreements

that prohibit them from actually peeling back some of these activities; and it forms an impediment to managers to actually ask questions about what is this for.

For example, if someone invokes one of these agreements, that

stops the inquiry at that point.

Mr. HULSHOF. But are you saying that, for instance, these arbitrators’ decisions are actually binding on the Social Security Administration?

Mr. HUSE. That’s correct. They’re binding on them in terms of

implementing these agreements.

Mr. HULSHOF. I see someone behind you shaking your head, no.

Ms. GARDINER. I believe that they can renegotiate though the collective bargaining agreements, and then that would take precedence over the previous arbitrator decisions.

Mr. HULSHOF. So there is the ability of the Social Security Administration to renegotiate?

Mr. HUSE. Right.

Mr. HULSHOF. Is that right?

Mr. HUSE. But while the agreement is intact, then they have to

comply with it. That was my——

Mr. HULSHOF. OK. As a last question, we understand that the

list of union representatives provided by the Social Security Administration was incomplete, perhaps outdated.

Can you tell us what effect that had on your surveys?

Mr. HUSE. I think Ms. Gardiner will be glad to tell you that.

Mr. HULSHOF. Ms. Gardiner.

Ms. GARDINER. Well, actually it affected the survey that we’re

not really talking about today, because it hasn’t been issued. The

problem was that, for the survey that we did conduct on Council

220, the agency had a list, and we were able to send those surveys

23

out. For the other councils that were not Council 220, like ROPIR

or OHA, we needed them to provide us a list, and they were unable

to do. So it was several months delay as a result.

Mr. HULSHOF. I appreciate your time. Mr. Chairman, I yield

back.

Chairman BUNNING. Mr. Becerra.

Mr. BECERRA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Actually, before I begin the question on this, the Team Act was

mentioned. I’d like to just make a point on the Team Act. A number of us, we’re very concerned about the Team Act. Even though

we’d like to say labor organizations and management work more as

a team, our concern was that the Team Act went way beyond saying that the two entities should work together as a team.

The Team Act, as I think it still reads, even though it has not

yet passed and become law, still allows the company to actually

recognize a new employer organization as the actual union for

these employees, and therefore engage with that organization on

such issues as wages, overtime pay, and dates of work. Those are

issues of collective bargaining, which I know that under the National Labor Relations Act are limited to only those organizations

that have been voted in by their employees to the unions that serve

them.

So, the concern that many of us have is that the Team Act goes

way beyond talking about working together as a team. It actually

redefines what a labor organization is, and who will represent it.

And that’s the biggest concern we have, is that you will have sham

organizations set up by companies, as we saw in the past before

the NLRA, to try to at least ostensibly represent these employees.

Mr. Huse, if I could ask a question. With regard to the 25 percent of supervisors who apparently reported some suspicions or

qualms about abuse of official time, did you document any case of

abuse of official time?

Mr. HUSE. Yes, we would, if it were reported to us as such, sir.

Mr. BECERRA. Did you—in other words, in the process of hearing

back from individuals that there was suspicion of abuse of official

time, did you undertake any efforts to investigate any of those allegations?

Mr. HUSE. No, we did not, not in these that we’re reporting here.

Mr. BECERRA. So, as far as we know from your report, at least

at this stage, there are suspicions out there, but there’s no documentation of any actual abuse by any employee?

Mr. HUSE. That’s correct.

Mr. BECERRA. Did any of these supervisors—the 25 percent or so

who said that they had suspicions or qualms about abuse of official

time—indicate to you that they took official action to try and document the alleged abuse of official time?

Mr. HUSE. Yes, they did.

Mr. BECERRA. And in those cases where they reported having

taking action, was action taken?

Mr. HUSE. As far as we know it was, or a decision was made.

Yes, a decision was made as to whether or not it constituted official

time.

But the problem was that the first-line manager that made the

report—and that was what I mentioned in my statement—they

24

were not informed of the agency’s decision. So that’s one of the

areas we’ve asked them to improve, is to get that feedback back to

the first-line manager.

Mr. BECERRA. And employees have no way themselves to try to

improve that communication between the managers at the local

level, and the agency heads who actually conduct the investigation,

do they? Do the employees have any way to effect that?

Mr. HUSE. No, the employees don’t know.

Mr. BECERRA. So, no one here can blame an employee for a process that management has set up that may not work that well, I

would imagine.

Mr. HUSE. That’s correct.

Mr. BECERRA. My understanding is that the number of unfair

labor practice charges have dropped in the recent years within the

Social Security Administration. Is that accurate?

Ms. GARDINER. That’s correct.

Mr. BECERRA. And I read some information where the average

cost of a charge of unfair labor practices filed by an employee could

cost on average about $28,000 to the agency, which means to the

taxpayer. If the numbers I have are correct, that in 1993 the number of unfair labor practice charges filed by employees was 382,

and in 1996 there had been a drop of over 50 percent to 168 unfair

labor practice charges, my quick math showed me that we saved

about $6 million by having reduced the number of unfair labor

practice charges filed by employees.

Do you have any reason to disagree with that?

Mr. HUSE. Well, that’s not any work that we looked at, but I

have to accept your figures. On their face it seems reasonable.

Mr. BECERRA. Or generally—not to bind you to my math, because

my math could be wrong—every time we reduce the number of

complaints by an employee that he or she is being treated unfairly

by management, we save money because we don’t have to go

through the process of investigating the charge, correct?

Mr. HUSE. That’s true.

Mr. BECERRA. And so, if we reduce the number of charges filed

by employees who feel aggrieved, by 214 or so over the last 3 years;

and it cost somewhere around $28,000 to process those charges,

we’ve saved about $6 million by having more partnership between

management and employees.

Mr. HUSE. Again, we didn’t do any work to verify that, or look

into it, but I accept your analysis.

Mr. BECERRA. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman BUNNING. The gentleman from Arizona, please.

Mr. HAYWORTH. I thank the Chairman. Mr. Huse, Ms. Gardiner,

thank you for coming down today.

Mr. Huse, would you agree that there is a distinction between

the public and private sectors?

Mr. HUSE. Well, there certainly is a distinction, yes.

Mr. HAYWORTH. In other words, there’s a distinction that we

could probably define as public or Federal Government employees

those people who work for the taxpayers, while individuals in private industry don’t work for the taxpayers, they work for private

industry; the stockholders, the shareholders, the people who own

the companies, correct?

25

Mr. HUSE. Correct.

Mr. HAYWORTH. OK. So, we can establish then that in the public

sector taxpayer dollars are being utilized for a variety of agreements. And it is in that context where the outrage comes, to know

that people willfully by design are ripping off the taxpayers for

their own personal conveniences, as documented in this report by

the response of managers who suspected abuse, who offered you

specific samples of abuse. That is where the outrage comes from.

I understand, Mr. Huse, that you may be reticent to make a

judgment, to render a value judgment, but speaking as the duly

elected constitutional officer for the people of the 6th District of Arizona, knowing the people I represent as I do, they would consider

it an abuse for taxpayer dollars to be whittled away by those who

would subvert the true meaning of collective bargaining, and even

government service.

Indeed, I want to return to something you said here. Twenty-five

percent of the managers suspect abuse, but those were just 25 percent of the managers who were willing to speak to you, correct?

Mr. HUSE. Correct.

Mr. HAYWORTH. How many managers avoided you, and for what

reasons did they say they would not respond to your inquiries?

Ms. GARDINER. Actually, the 25 percent represents the responses

to the surveys, and so, we think we got pretty candid information

on that. Then, we did go and interview managers, and I believe all

of the managers did talk to us.

Mr. HAYWORTH. Let me rephrase that. I want to understand this

clearly, because I understand there was a reticence on the part of

many to even respond to your survey.

Ms. GARDINER. For union representatives that’s correct.

Mr. HAYWORTH. Union representatives did not want to respond.

Well, this seems very interesting, because it would seem to me if

people are proud of collective bargaining, if people would like to

champion this, then they should step forward and answer questions.

It brings us back to the outrage in Boston. If there were people

for 20 years Christmas shopping on the taxpayer’s dime, going out

on government time, I guess we ought to ask the question, where

were the union leaders there? Where was the AFGE, and all the

folks so interested in collective bargaining, to stand up and defend

this? Did they defend that right?

Mr. HUSE. Are you asking me?

Mr. HAYWORTH. Yes, I am, Mr. Huse.

Mr. HUSE. I can’t answer your question, because we didn’t really

look into that particular instance, to know who did or who did

not—what their motivations were.

Again, we’re limited by the work we actually did in this context

here.

Mr. HAYWORTH. But we pointed out what can fairly be called an

abuse, and for whatever reasons, already documented the fact that

many of these proud union leaders were reticent to speak about

their involvement in the collective bargaining process, or even give

the American people an accounting of the way in which time is

used. This seems to me to suggest that they’re hiding something;

that we’ve captured just the tip of the iceberg through these acVerDate 11-SEP-98 16:29 Mar 27, 2000 Jkt 061080 PO 00000 Frm 00028 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 K:\HEARINGS\61080.TXT WAYS3 PsN: WAYS3
26

counts of 25 percent of the managers who were willing to respond.

And if people are truly proud of this process, they would step forward into the sunlight and explain to us why it’s such a good idea

for Mr. and Mrs. America to pay people to skate away from their

jobs, to go Christmas shopping in Boston, or anywhere in this country, on the taxpayer’s dime.

That is an abuse any way you slice it. That is what is wrong.

And that is what we have to change. It is an abuse. And I am just

absolutely astonished that people would not answer your questions.

What reasons do they give for not wanting to step up and answer

the questions?

Ms. GARDINER. Most of the time they didn’t say. They just said

that the AFGE National did encourage them to answer, but that

they chose not to. And that’s all they said.

Mr. HAYWORTH. They chose not to give an accounting to the

American people. You are agents of the American people, and they

chose not to give an accounting. That’s very revealing. I thank you

for your time.

Chairman BUNNING. Thank you.

The gentleman from Arizona.

Let me just continue on just for a few minutes.

All of this seems to stem from a problem with an Executive order

signed by President Clinton in 1993, articulating a new vision, supposedly, of management relations called partnership, that required

agencies to involve employees as full partners with management,

to identify problems and craft solutions to better fulfill the agency’s

mission, and service customers.

Under that Partnership Act, does that allow collective bargaining

units around this country in SSA to bargain for waste, fraud, and

abuse in a labor contract with the Social Security Administration?

In other words, is it able in Boston to negotiate the ability to go

out and go Christmas shopping? Is that part of an agreement they

have with the Social Security Administration in Zone 1, or whatever you want to call it?

Mr. HUSE. Region 1.

Chairman BUNNING. Region 1.

Mr. HUSE. It was.

Chairman BUNNING. It was. So, the Partnership Act allows collective bargaining units of the SSA to collective bargain waste,

fraud, and abuse in an agreement with the Social Security Administration. And that’s called good government, and that’s helping,

better relationships between management and their union representatives? Is that my understanding?

Mr. HUSE. That’s not our understanding.

Chairman BUNNING. That’s not your understanding?

Mr. HUSE. No——

Chairman BUNNING. Do you think to allow a collective bargaining unit to go and do Christmas shopping on government time is

not waste, fraud, and abuse in some manner? Personally? Personally, do you think that that’s a normal thing to negotiate?

Mr. HUSE. It’s impossible for me to make a personal judgment

here because of the office I hold. I have to be a fact-finder, and we

just looked at the facts. This is a part of a collective bargaining

agreement.

27

Chairman BUNNING. Then that is a fact what I just stated.

Mr. HUSE. The fact that they had the right to Christmas shop,

yes. The value part of it, the worth of it, I’m constrained to answer

that, sir. I can’t get into that, that’s policy. We didn’t look at that.

Chairman BUNNING. It’s amazing to me that the American people

would be asked to OK any kind of collective bargaining unit and

privileges granted thereof through negotiations, that would use

taxpayer’s money for anything but working to better the Social Security Administration, and service to the senior citizens, the widows and children that the SSA trust funds were created for.

And if partnership allows that, the Executive order called partnership in 1993, allows that, then it’s seriously flawed, and the

Congress of the United States should do something about that Executive order, otherwise we’re spinning our wheels.

Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Chairman, I think you’re absolutely right.

We are accountable to the taxpayers. And whether it was part of

a collective bargaining agreement or not, for those who earn their

living from the taxpayers to confuse Uncle Sam with Santa Claus,

and abuse their mission with the Social Security Administration,

and in essence abuse the funds within that administration that

seniors in this country count on, I concur with the Chairman that

we must seek legislative remedies to Executive orders that would

usurp and abuse the taxpayers hard-earned dollars and the Social

Security Trust Fund. I thank you, and yield back.

Chairman BUNNING. We want to thank you for your—Mac, go

ahead.

Mr. COLLINS. Just briefly to go back through some things.

Your mission there was to investigate whether or not union activities complied with relevant laws. Your summation of that was

they did not, is that true?

Mr. HUSE. Our mission as we worked it through, based on

our——

Mr. COLLINS. I’m reading from your testimony, that ‘‘the union

activities complied with relevant laws.’’

Mr. HUSE. That’s correct.

Mr. COLLINS. Were your findings that they did not comply with

relevant law?

Mr. HUSE. Our findings were that the accounting for official time

was not as accurate as we’d like to see it.

Mr. COLLINS. Does that mean it was in noncompliance because

the lack of accuracy would affect the reimbursement to the trust

funds?

Mr. HUSE. We found that there were inaccuracies.

Mr. COLLINS. So, it was actually not complying with the relevant

law which requires accuracy in order to have an appropriate, correct assessment.

Mr. HUSE. We made some recommendations, and the SSA has

accepted our recommendations.

Mr. COLLINS. But it’s truthful to say that they were not complying, based on your findings.

And also, were they in compliance with the regulations? Yes, for

the record that you did nod yes.

Mr. HUSE. I did nod yes.

28

Mr. COLLINS. As to the regulations, did you find that they were

in full compliance with the regulations?

Ms. GARDINER. I can’t think of any regulations right off the top

of my head that they didn’t comply with. It was mostly the bargaining agreements that they did not comply with.

Mr. COLLINS. They did not comply with the Executive order, even

though it might have provided a broad-based definition of partnership, according to your earlier testimony.

Ms. GARDINER. That they could have done a better job, but not

necessarily that they didn’t comply with the law.

Mr. COLLINS. Well, Mr. Huse said that they did not want to accept the recommendation to define partnership still, even though

the Executive order required a broad-based definition of partnership, in order to accomplish the means of partnership. Is that not

true?

Mr. HUSE. That’s true. Because there is no way for us to quantify

what partnership is under the present system.

Mr. COLLINS. So they were not in full compliance there. Right?

No nod. Yes or no?

Mr. HUSE. Well——

Mr. COLLINS. No ‘‘wells.’’

Mr. HUSE. In their view, they are in compliance.

Mr. COLLINS. Yes or no.

Ms. GARDINER. I do think that they believe they have it defined,

so it is a matter of disagreement of opinion. We don’t believe it is

well defined, they believe it is well defined. So, I think they think

they are complying, and we think they could do a better job of complying.

Mr. COLLINS. OK. We’ll let you off on that one. They were not

complying with the regulations.

Collective bargaining agreement. You did find that they were not

complying with collective bargaining, right?

Mr. HUSE. Correct.

Mr. COLLINS. In what manners? More union representatives and

supervisors than allowed?

Mr. HUSE. Correct.

Mr. COLLINS. How about in compliance of answering complaints?

Mr. HUSE. We recommended some improvements——

Mr. COLLINS. Were they in compliance with answering—the recommending of the complaints?

Mr. HUSE. They were.

Mr. COLLINS. They were in compliance?

Mr. HUSE. They were.

Mr. COLLINS. Does compliance include telling supervisors to overlook complaints?

Mr. HUSE. Well, that’s an improvement to a system that’s in

place.

Mr. COLLINS. But, is that in compliance? That was in your report; that a supervisor was told to overlook complaints. Is that in

compliance, to overlook complaints?

Mr. HUSE. No.

Ms. GARDINER. That part’s not, but——

Mr. COLLINS. That’s not in compliance.

29

Ms. GARDINER. The only part that they were required to do

though was to bring it to the supervisor’s attention, and then it’s

silent on what becomes of it after that.

Mr. COLLINS. But the supervisors were told to overlook them.

Ms. GARDINER. That’s true.

Mr. COLLINS. That’s true. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Chairman BUNNING. Mr. Portman, welcome to the meeting, and

you can inquire.

Mr. PORTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was here at the outset, and got to hear all the testimony and beginning of the questions. I’m sorry, I had to——

Chairman BUNNING. Busy with IRS, I understand.

Mr. PORTMAN [continuing]. Had to leave, but I’m back. I appreciate your testimony today, and your report, and the Chairman’s

holding the hearing. Because this is very important. It’s a continuation of our efforts to try to figure out what’s really going on. And

to try to be fair about it, but to understand what’s going on with

regard to activities within the SSA.

I heard you talk earlier about the partnership, and I’m sorry,

again, I missed the questions. I don’t think this question has been

asked yet though.

These partnership councils, how many partnership councils are

there in the agency?

Ms. GARDINER. I believe there’s 42. They have a national partnership council, and regional, and local councils.

Mr. PORTMAN. And of those 42, how many people does that involve?

Ms. GARDINER. I don’t know.

Mr. PORTMAN. Is it a different number of people, depending on

the level? In other words, is there a larger union here, than at—

facilities, the smaller one.

Ms. GARDINER. It varies from council to council.

Mr. PORTMAN. So, every council might be different, in terms of

the number of people and how it’s structured.

What’s a typical council? How many people?

Ms. GARDINER. About 5 to 10 normally.

Mr. PORTMAN. Five to ten people? Did you find that information

as to how many hours were devoted to the partnership during the

last fiscal year?

Ms. GARDINER. The agency didn’t track that consistently. Some

people reported partnership time, and some did not. Some believed

it was official time, and some did not, so there was no overall accounting of that.

Mr. PORTMAN. And did you get into much detail as to what went

on in these partnership council meetings, what they’re about?

We’ve heard evidence talking about where shelving units should be

placed, and that sort of thing.

Ms. GARDINER. We did look at some of the minutes of the council

meetings, but originally our approach was going to be a little bit

different on how we evaluate partnership, and so we started out

looking at some of the minutes. But then once the agency decided

to do its own inventory, we kind of changed gears. So, we didn’t

really go that route to look at the partnership minutes, and what

they were and were not achieving.

30

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Huse.

Mr. HUSE. No, that answer is responsive.

Mr. PORTMAN. Were you satisfied when you looked at the minutes that what was going on in there was productive, was the kind

of thing that you would expect these councils to discuss and address?

Ms. GARDINER. We never really completed it, because what we

had wanted to do—what we originally thought we would do is look

at what the goal of a particular project was, and whether it had

been achieved. And we decided not to do that. So, I really can’t

comment on a conclusion.

Mr. PORTMAN. Is there accountability in the system right now as

to what takes place. These meetings are—I assume this is taking

away from work, is that correct?

Mr. HUSE. That’s correct.

Mr. PORTMAN. So, these are during work hours? These are meetings, 5 to 10 people, councils, 42 of them around the country.

Is there a way that the IG’s office can look at what’s going on

in these minutes, and see whether they are indeed meeting their

purposes and being. Is there some accountability measure?

Mr. HUSE. Well, that’s our conclusion from our review, that this

is something that really needs to be better defined and better accountable.

Mr. PORTMAN. As to the purpose of the meetings, or the council

structure itself?

Mr. HUSE. The purpose of the meetings—we didn’t get into the

actual purposes of the meetings.

Mr. PORTMAN. But you think there should be more accountability

as to what goes on, establish a clearer mission, or goals. Is that the

idea? When you say more accountability, what do you mean?

Ms. GARDINER. More accountability in that the agency has—well,

they issued their report, indicating the results of partnership.

In that it identifies benefits, but it doesn’t identify cost. So, what

we were recommending is that they have accounting of the hours

associated with partnerships, so that when they discuss the benefits, they can also offset those against the cost.

Mr. PORTMAN. OK. So, a lot of the accountability you’d like to see

is simply a recordkeeping of how many hours were spent on partnership activities.

Mr. HUSE. So we can make a quantifiable judgment as to the efficacy of this.

Mr. PORTMAN. Right. The other thing, I guess, in terms of quantifiable judgment—my time is running out—is if you could give us

more information as to the data that would be necessary to prove

the link between partnership in general, and reduced grievances.

That would be helpful. Because I’m not sure from your report

whether we have that kind of data.

Ms. GARDINER. What we had hoped was that we were going to

look at unfair labor practices and grievances that were filed prior

to partnership, and then after partnership. And the only thing the

agency had was just sheer numbers, just the volume.

Mr. PORTMAN. And you have also a different appraisal system.

Going to the pass/fail valuation system would alter that data also,

correct?

31

Ms. GARDINER. Well, we thought we might be able to draw that

conclusion, but since they didn’t have the number of grievances

that were associated with ratings prior to partnership, and those

that were associated with ratings after partnership, we couldn’t

draw that link either, although that it may be likely.

Mr. PORTMAN. So, again, you need more quantifiable information.

Mr. HUSE. Again, that’s the big—that’s the core of our recommendations around the accuracy of these data.

Mr. PORTMAN. OK. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman BUNNING. Mr. Becerra, go ahead.

Mr. BECERRA. Let me see if I can understand this. I’m looking

at your written testimony, and I’m looking at the final paragraph.

You state in your conclusion, ‘‘Based on our recommendations

and its earlier actions, SSA, the Social Security Administration,

has strengthened its procedures and controls to ensure that official

time is used appropriately, that allegations of suspected abuse are

resolved, and that official time data are complete and accurate. We

also recommended that SSA develop a formal system for identifying

partnership accomplishment, and resultant cost savings. Neither

SSA or AFGE agree with this final recommendation.’’

Insofar as that first recommendation, and your statement SSA

has strengthened its procedures and controls, and that allegations

of suspected abuse are resolved, are you making any recommendation today that we institute additional activities beyond the partnership activities, and the automated management information

system that the Social Security Administration has undertaken?

Mr. HUSE. No, that they accepted our recommendations and

came—as I said in my testimony, they came to some of these conclusions themselves. This is just with respect to official time.

Mr. BECERRA. So, let me make sure I understand this. As the Inspector General, having audited the Social Security Administration

on these issues of official time, the efficacy of the partnership that

was formed as a result of the Executive order by the President, are

you telling me today that you believe, based on your examination,

that the activities being undertaken by the Social Security Administration should be able to resolve any problems that you think

needed correcting?

Mr. HUSE. No. My response is narrower than that.

Mr. BECERRA. OK.

Mr. HUSE. Our focus on official time is where we say that the

agency has agreed with us and taken corrective actions.

Mr. BECERRA. And are you satisfied with that?

Mr. HUSE. We’re satisfied with it if it works. We don’t know

whether it works or not. OUTTS, this automated information system is new, and we didn’t audit that.

Mr. BECERRA. But, are you satisfied at least that the automated

management system that they’re trying to put in place has the

chance to work?

Mr. HUSE. Yes, we are.

Mr. BECERRA. OK. Do you believe it would be worthwhile to

allow the system to be implemented to see if it works?

Mr. HUSE. Agreed.

Mr. BECERRA. OK. Continue.

32

Mr. HUSE. Now, that’s on the use of official time. The broader

question of partnership is different. This is where the agency and

the IG part. We believe that there has to be a definition of partnership if it’s to be measured, and it has to be a tighter definition than

the agency has extant now.

We also believe that the inventory of partnership activities that

they claim are partnership activities needs to be tightened. I think

it’s somewhere in the thousands now—1,400—1,500 or so different

activities that they claim are under the umbrella of partnership.

We believe a much tighter accounting needs to be present for those

partnership activities.

And then finally, with those two in place, a definition, and then

an inventory, we could get to the data to answer the Subcommittee’s questions, because we can’t now. So, that’s what we found.

Mr. BECERRA. So then, let me ask you with regard to the issue

of partnership and collecting the data, what would you recommend

that this Committee review in terms of the types of data, and the

form of the partnership, which you believe would then allow everyone to have the information available to assess the success of the

SSA’s new program to make sure that management and the workers are working well and efficiently for the people?

Mr. HUSE. Well, if they followed our recommendations, and had

a tight definition of what partnership is, and then add a limited

list of activities that actually fall under partnership; put that with

an automated accounting system like OUTTS—

Mr. BECERRA. Did you provide any definitions of partnership that

you thought would be appropriate?

Mr. HUSE. Again, for the very reasons, we thought that that

would be crossing a boundary that the law doesn’t give us.

Mr. BECERRA. So, you would like the SSA to come up with the

definition and then you would like to evaluate whether or not it’s

a good enough definition?

Mr. HUSE. Absolutely. We wouldn’t see our role as appropriate

to do that, sir.

Mr. BECERRA. I understand. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and

thank you very much to the two of you for testifying.

Chairman BUNNING. Just to make sure that there’s no misunderstanding about your conclusions, the definition of partnership and

related activities was unclear.

The inventory as you spoke of partnership activity was questionable. In other words, that you couldn’t get a hold of it, because

there’s too many things falling under the umbrella, and more defined.

SSA systems did not provide sufficient data to support a quantitative interpretation of the results or accomplishments from partnership. Even though the OUTTS system is in place, there wasn’t

enough data that you could get a handle on.

Mr. HUSE. That’s correct, sir.

Chairman BUNNING. That’s your conclusions?

Mr. HUSE. That’s our report.

Mr. BECERRA. Mr. Chairman, if I could just add one——

Chairman BUNNING. No, we’re going to close——

33

Mr. BECERRA. Just one real quick question on the point that

you’ve made. I just want to make sure that—there are problems

with the SSA complying with what the——

Chairman BUNNING. Both the SSA and the union, both.

Mr. BECERRA. But in terms of what you’ve just mentioned, any

of the things that you’ve just mentioned—that the Chairman has

just mentioned—do the employees have control over the methods

that are implemented by the administration at SSA in determining

what falls under partnership?

Mr. HUSE. No, the employees themselves do not. The partnership

activities I assume would be the result of collective bargaining

agreements.

Mr. BECERRA. And in terms of how the official time is defined

and permitted to be used, that’s through collective bargaining, and

ultimately the actual implementation is done by management, over

request by the employees?

Mr. HUSE. That’s right, you’re right.

Mr. BECERRA. So, if there’s an accusation or a suspicion of abuse

by an employee, it has to be reported, and it has to be investigated

by management. And unless it’s investigated, and perhaps there’s

a finding one way or the other, and an employee won’t know, if in

fact, he or she’s making a request that’s out of the bounds of the

collective bargaining agreement?

Mr. HUSE. You’re right.

Mr. BECERRA. Thank you.

Chairman BUNNING. Just so there’s no misunderstanding about

what is in the record, I would like to by unanimous consent put the

IG’s report in the record. Without objections we’ll do that.

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Chairman BUNNING. And to close, often it’s impossible for this

Subcommittee—I know you wouldn’t agree with that—to cover

every issue we are interested in during this hearing; therefore we

may be submitting additional questions in writing for you to answer for the record.

[The following was subsequently received:]

1a. Is the process of requesting and/or approving official time different for full-time

union officials versus part-time union officials?

No, the process of requesting and approving official time does not differ depending

on full-time or part-time status. However, it may be different for union officers versus non-officers.

All union representatives should request and arrange in advance for their use of

official time by preparing an official time form. However, the negotiated agreements

allow the parties to make other arrangements for requesting official time when the

union representative is unable to do so in advance. In addition, at Headquarters,

union officials are required to make arrangements to sign in and out with a management official/supervisor.

1b. What did the supervisors tell you about the requests they receive for official time?

Were they accurate? Complete? Do they try to get more information from the union

official when the requests are incomplete?

We found that supervisors usually cannot determine whether the request for official time is for an authorized activity because information provided on the official

time forms is incomplete or the official time forms do not require specific information.

Based on our interviews with 12 supervisors at Headquarters, 10 stated that they

did not know or attempt to judge whether the requests for official time were appropriate. We believe the principal reasons for this statement were that the official

time forms do not require adequate data to make an informed decision or were completed with vague responses. Supervisors generally do not try to get more information when a request is incomplete.

2. Without getting into specific identifying details, we understand that your office

was involved in an investigation involving travel voucher fraud and suspected abuse

of official time. Can you tell us what happened in that investigation? What was the

ultimate result? Is this individual still working at SSA, and if so, what job does this

individual hold?

Our office received an allegation concerning the suspected abuse of official time

and travel voucher fraud of an SSA claims representative. We opened an investigation and determined that over a period of 3 years the claims representative applied

for and accepted payment for travel and per diem for which he was not entitled.

We concluded our investigation on April 11, 1996. Since the U.S. Attorney declined

prosecution, we referred the matter to SSA for appropriate administrative action.

SSA suspended the individual without pay for 60 days. He has since returned to

his position of claims representative at an SSA field office. We could not substantiate the portion of the allegation concerning abuse of official time.

3a. How is the number of union representatives determined?

The number of union representatives is determined by collective bargaining agreements.

3b. Does SSA keep current lists of those authorized to use official time?

At the time of our audit, we found that SSA did not maintain a current, accurate

listing of union representatives nationwide. Since that time SSA has taken steps to

collect accurate listings of union representatives to further assist in its efforts to enforce contractual limits on the number of official representatives.

3c. Does SSA ensure that the limits on the number of representatives are adhered

to?

As indicated in the previous response, SSA has a process in place to ensure that

the contractual agreements are followed.

3d. Did some offices have more than the allotted number of union representatives?

During our audit of selected offices, we found one component had more than the

allotted number of representatives. Local 1923 at Headquarters had 11 Assistant

202

Chief Stewards authorized to use official time at a given point in time, whereas the

collective bargaining agreement indicates there should have been only 7. This has

been corrected by SSA.

4. An Executive Order signed by President Clinton in 1993 articulated a new vision

of management relations, called ‘‘Partnership’’ that required agencies to involve employees as full partners with management to identify problems and craft solutions

to better fulfill the agency’s mission and serve its customers. Did SSA have any specific list or inventory of what are considered Partnership activities when you began

your survey?

No. SSA had neither conducted its own evaluation of Partnership nor developed

its own inventory of Partnership activities. In July 1997, several months after we

began our evaluation, SSA established its Partnership Evaluation Team to compile

the first agency-wide inventory of Partnership initiatives and to evaluate SSA Partnership activities.

5. Did you review SSA’s Partnership inventory? If so, what were your findings?

When we reviewed the inventory of Partnership activities, we found it difficult to

determine which activities met the intent of Partnership; that is, ‘‘. . . to identify

problems and craft solutions to better serve the agency’s customers and mission’’

(E.O. 12983). We also found that SSA had not defined ‘‘Partnership’’ and related activities before it conducted its own evaluation of Partnership. Therefore, it was not

unexpected to find that the inventory included a broad range of miscellaneous activities because employees across SSA had developed their own definitions. We questioned the usefulness of the diverse grouping of activities in assessing progress and

measuring the improvements that result from Partnership. For example, some of

the reported activities included:

installation of shelving units,

use of radios on overtime,

break-room clean-up,

debt modernization project,

organizational planning team, and

interest-based bargaining training.

As you are aware, there is a significant difference of opinion between the OIG and

SSA in this area.

6. SSA has informed this Subcommittee that Partnership has helped reduce the high

costs associated with litigation of grievances. Do your findings support this statement?

Our review did not find support for SSA’s statement. We determined there was

insufficient evidence to draw such a connection. The data were incomplete and did

not provide the details necessary to determine whether Partnership had reduced the

number of grievances. SSA management agreed that the data necessary ‘‘to prove

the link’’ between Partnership and the reduction in grievance costs did not exist before 1996. SSA management intuitively believes that Partnership has had a positive

effect on the Agency and has made addressing labor-related issues easier.

7. You have stated that the data necessary to prove the link were not available. What

information was available?

Only summary records for grievances were available. To prove a link between

partnership and a reduction in grievance costs, we would need to examine the issues

that had previously been grieved and compare them to issues that are currently

being grieved. It still might be difficult to prove the link. For example, it is alleged

that many grievances related to performance appraisals. In 1995, SSA implemented

a Pass/Fail performance rating system. The decline in grievances in 1996 and 1997

could be attributed to Partnership, the new appraisal system, or factors not known

to us.

8. An earlier General Accounting Office report indicated that Partnership would likely result in an increase in the amount of official time used. Do you believe this is

true?

No. The Commissioner of Social Security determined that time spent on Partnership activities will not be considered official time; therefore, such time will not be

reflected in SSA’s official time reports. That decision was based on the conclusion

that Partnership activities do not constitute the type of representational activity defined in the Federal Labor-Management Relations Statute. During our evaluation,

we asked the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) whether other Federal agenVerDate 11-SEP-98 16:29 Mar 27, 2000 Jkt 061080 PO 00000 Frm 00205 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 K:\HEARINGS\61080.TXT WAYS3 PsN: WAYS3
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cies were reporting Partnership activities as official time. OPM informed us that the

reporting of Partnership time as official time varies from agency to agency.

9a. How does SSA plan to capture Partnership time and will SSA report on the number of employees’ hours and costs involved in Partnership?

In January 1998, SSA established new guidance to record time expended on Partnership activities by managers, union officials, and employees. SSA has determined

that Partnership activities include:

facilitating Partnership Council meetings and training,

attending Partnership Council meetings,

Partnership training, and

travel to/from Partnership meetings and training.

SSA has developed a temporary, automated system for managers only. The Agency is exploring a more permanent process for reporting Partnership time for all employees (i.e., expanding the Official Union Time Tracking System [OUTTS]). OUTTS

is an automated system that tracks the use of official time and enables monitoring

of the hours expended on union activities by individual union representatives in the

field (not at Headquarters). In the interim, SSA developed the following forms for

all employees to capture and report partnering activities:

Form SSA–298, Weekly Partnership Activities Time Accounting Form (submitted

to the immediate supervisor each week)

Form SSA–299, Management Partnership/Labor Management Relations Activities

Time Accounting Form (submitted to the Office of Labor Management and Employee

Relations on a quarterly basis)

Form SSA–301, Partnership Activities Time Accounting Form for Union Designees (submitted to supervisors on a basis consistent with existing methods for releasing employees or union officials from the worksite)

New time reporting guidance, systems, and forms may provide SSA with an ability to report on the number of employees hours and their estimated cost.

9b. How many of the activities in SSA’s inventory of Partnership activities would

meet SSA’s definition of Partnership activities?

We determined that approximately 192 of 1,537 activities in SSA’s inventory of

Partnership activities would meet SSA’s definition of Partnership activities. The remaining 1,345 would be considered either Agency time or official time. Official time

would be reported only in situations where union and management officials cannot

agree on a participant for an activity (for example, a workgroup), and the union

would appoint a representative. We were unable to determine which of the 1,345

would be Agency time or official time.

9c. When SSA does its next evaluation of Partnership, will it assess its achievements

based only on those activities it will be formally tracking?

SSA staff informed us that no decision has been made concerning this issue for

the next evaluation.

10. What do you think your findings tell us about the use of official time at SSA?

Although SSA has taken action to improve the accuracy of the official time reporting process, more needs to be done. Improvements are needed in existing procedures

and controls pertaining to use of official time. Additionally, SSA needs to ensure

that allegations of suspected abuse of official time are resolved in a timely manner

and that the resolution is communicated to the appropriate manager.

11. What do you think your findings say about Partnership?

SSA needs to develop a more uniform definition of Partnership that is consistent

with other Partnership related guidance. It also needs to develop a formal system

for identifying and maintaining Partnership initiatives and accomplishments. Finally, the agency needs to develop a consolidated guide of time-reporting policies

and procedures for reporting time and costs devoted to Partnership and other unionrelated activities.

and Mr. Huse for all your staff’s hard work in finalizing this report.

Chairman BUNNING. First of all, I want to thank Ms. Gardiner

f

I look forward to your continued support in full investigation, all

reports of abuse brought before this Subcommittee.

204

The hearing stands adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 11:40 a.m., the hearing was adjourned, subject to

the call of the Chair.]

(205)

LABOR-MANAGEMENT RELATIONS AT THE

SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION

THURSDAY, JULY 23, 1998

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SOCIAL SECURITY,

Washington, DC.

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m., in

room 1100, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Jim Bunning

(Chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding.

Chairman BUNNING. The Subcommittee will come to order,

please.

Good morning. All our guests, please take seats—I would appreciate it—after they get their materials, please.

Today is the second day of our investigation of abuse involving

taxpayers’ financing of union activity at the Social Security Administration. I am very pleased with the bipartisan cooperation we

have received, and I’m grateful to SSA’s Inspector General for his

fine work fighting fraud and abuse. Let me repeat what I said yesterday: ‘‘We have an obligation to protect the integrity of the Social

Security, and we must respect the rights of organized labor. But we

must do so while fighting abuse wherever we find it.’’

Today we’ll hear from several SSA managers and employees who

have displayed great courage and dedication to their—to the seniors they serve. These hard-working civil servants have traveled

here to share their experiences with us. Our job is to help them so

they can better serve our Nation’s elderly, the disabled, and the

widows and survivors who come under SSA’s purview.

Some of the testimony we will hear is unsettling. I commend

each of you for the civil duty you are performing by sharing your

information with us. It may not be easy, but our Nation will owe

you its thanks for your effort today.

I understand that in the past one witness with us today had his

tires slashed. Another received a threat that he would end up missing. I want to be clear about this, and very clear, so there’s no misunderstanding. No one on this Subcommittee—no Democrat, no Republican—will tolerate threats against civil servants who come forward to serve their Nation. It would be a violation, first of all, of

Federal law for anyone at the agency to retaliate against our witnesses today because of their testimony before Congress. I want to

put everyone at the agency on notice: Conduct of that kind will not

be tolerated. And I intend to keep a very close eye on this matter

after the hearing.

206

In the interest of time, it is our practice to dispense with opening

statements, except for the Ranking Democratic Member. All Members are welcome to submit statements for the record. I yield to

Mrs. Kennelly any time that she would take to make a statement.

Mrs. KENNELLY. I appreciate that, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, as representatives of the people, our duty is to

carefully consider every side of an issue, and examine a wide range

of information, so that we can make the best decisions. We cannot

do this if we can only hear half of the story.

Our meeting today focuses on employee-management relations at

the Social Security Administration. As is the case in many offices

with managers and employees, there are managers at SSA who

think their employees’ time could be better used if they did not

spend any time representing other employees. Today we will hear

from two managers who seem to hold that view.

In total, however, there are about 1,300 local office managers at

SSA, and they hold a wide range of views on employee-management relations in their offices. It’s important to recognize that any

manager, regardless of whether he has a good relationship with

employees or a bad one, would be reluctant to come before Congress to speak about employee relations. The two witnesses we

have subpoenaed represent their own perspective. But many managers at SSA have a different view.

The organization representing all 1,300 local office managers

sent a letter presenting a broader view than the two witnesses we

have before us today. And I would ask permission to read two paragraphs from the letter, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman BUNNING. Without objection.

Mrs. KENNELLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The overwhelming majority of employees in field offices and teleservice centers

are represented by unions. Managers and supervisors across the country must deal

frequently with union representatives on issues that affect the working conditions

of the staffs in each organized facility. The issues that are discussed by management and the union vary from office to office. The success of those discussions and

the time devoted to those discussions depend, to some degree, on a number of factors. Those factors can include the labor relations history of the individual facility,

the personalities, negotiating styles, and expertise of the individuals involved in the

process.

The relative importance of the issue being discussed and the levels of support that

both management and labor receive from higher levels in their respective bureaucracies. I have heard reliably that in some facilities within SSA labor management

relations continue to be strained, and more than the usual amount of time is spent

on union activities by both managers and union representatives. However, in many,

many other facilities, there are very good labor-management relations and little

time spent on union activities.

This letter was sent to me, and it’s signed Ron Neising, President, CSSMA.

Chairman BUNNING. Well, do you mind if we put the whole thing

in the record?

Mrs. KENNELLY. Good idea. Great idea.

Chairman BUNNING. We’ll just enter the whole thing in the

record.

Mrs. KENNELLY. Thank you, Jim.

[No information had been received at the time of printing.]

Mr. Chairman, we must be really upfront about the reasons we

have these two carefully selected managers who want to be here to

207

testify in person. Managers who have no complaints about the current system, who think it is an efficient use of resources, or who

have no stories to tell about abuses and don’t need any media attention, they just didn’t feel the need to come at this point in time.

And yet, as Members of Congress, we have a responsibility to

consider the most numerous, less interesting examples as well.

With all due respect to the valid experiences of witnesses and the

testimony we are about hear, we will not be serving the American

people if we end up governing by anecdote.

And I would say that we must have some representation from

the other side of the story.

I thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman BUNNING. Thank you, Congresswoman Kennelly.

I’d like to call the panel and introduce the panel that is going

to be testifying today. John Reusing, Claims Authorizer in the Division of International Operations and third vice president of the

AFGE local 1923 at the Social Security Administration in Baltimore, Maryland. We seem to have a vacancy. Jim Beckstrom will

introduce him if he shows up.

Jim, come right up; we found you—a computer specialist for the

Office of Systems and Cochair of the Office of Systems Partnership

Council at the Social Security Administration in Baltimore, Maryland. Jim Schampers—that’s correct?—district manager of the

Waco, Texas, Social Security Administration District Office, and

Edwin Hardesty, district manager of the Tulsa, Oklahoma, Social

Security District Office.

If the witnesses will stand, I will swear you in.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Before the witnesses begin their testimony, let me remind them

that they should refrain from specifically identifying in this open

hearing any individual allegation involved in unlawful or improper

activities. I believe that the appropriate forum for that information

would be at the SSA Office of the Inspector General.

Therefore, I would ask that you provide that type of information

if you have it and any supporting documents to the IG.

Mr. Reusing, you may proceed.

STATEMENT OF JOHN REUSING, CLAIMS AUTHORIZER, DIVISION OF INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS, SOCIAL SECURITY

ADMINISTRATION, BALTIMORE, MARYLAND; AND THIRD

VICE PRESIDENT OF AMERICAN FEDERATION OF GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES, LOCAL 1923

Mr. REUSING. My name is John Reusing, and I have been an employee at the Social Security Administration in Baltimore, Maryland for 25 years. I am currently a claims authorizer in the agency’s Division of International Operations, and I have been active in

unions for 30 years. I am currently the third vice president of

AFGE local 1923, where I have served as a steward or an officer

for 15 years.

Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Reusing, forgive me for interrupting, but if you could please pull the microphone directly in

front of you, closer, that would be good.

Mr. BECERRA. Mr. Chairman, parliamentary inquiry. Mr. Chairman? Parliamentary inquiry. I understand that some of the witVerDate 11-SEP-98 16:29 Mar 27, 2000 Jkt 061080 PO 00000 Frm 00210 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 K:\HEARINGS\61080.TXT WAYS3 PsN: WAYS3
208

nesses were subpoenaed. Does that mean that they are testifying

under oath at this stage?

Chairman BUNNING. They all are testifying under oath. We gave

them the oath.

Mr. BECERRA. OK. Thank you very much.

Mr. REUSING. Despite the demands of my union position, I have

always felt an obligation to spend a portion of my time working for

the taxpayers by performing the duties of my job. This practice has

allowed me to be a more effective advocate of employee concerns

and meet my dual obligation to the taxpayers and SSA employees.

Unfortunately, many of my union colleagues do not share my

views.

The union rarely consults employees on major issues and often

does not inform the employees of decisions it makes. Union activists in my local do not believe they are accountable to management

or the employees. There is virtually no supervision of officers and

stewards by management or union officials. This has led to rampant abuse of official time. Union officers usually conduct internal

union business on official time. They attend union meetings, campaign for union office, and work on the union budget while on official time. Employees have observed union activists selling real estate, working at Camden Yards stadium, and doing home maintenance while on official time. On many occasions, I have seen my

colleagues using official time to go shopping, conduct personal business, or pursue hobbies, such as fishing, golf, and record collecting.

However, the most common complaint of employees and managers is that union officials are just not there. They are on official

time, but they are not onsite. Official time has also been used for

political activity. Training meetings have been used to rally stewards to support political candidates. Union dues have also been

used for political contributions. When these abuses are discovered,

no action is taken. Management has learned that it can get anything it wants from the union if it grants enough official time.

Union representatives have learned how to use the EEO process

to get unlimited official time. Complaints that could have been resolved under the less costly grievance process are filed under EEO,

so the steward can get more official time. EEO time does not count

against the agency’s labor relations budget, and, therefore, probably did not show up in the OIG audit.

The partnership agreement is probably the worst thing that has

happened to SSA employees and taxpayers. With partnership came

the implementation of the pass/fail rating and award panels. These

changes have lowered morale and reduced productivity. The OIG

report grossly underestimated the time on partnership. Most people

involved in partnership committees are not union activists; some

are not even members. They serve on award panels, work groups,

and as facilitators.

Award committees are the worst aspect of partnership. Each year

about 10 percent of the employees in my office spend two or more

weeks giving out awards. For the most part, they give these

awards to themselves and their friends. When employees complain

to the union, they are told that they don’t have a case. If they file

an EEO complaint, a high ranking official in the union interferes

in the investigation. Partnership councils are also being used to adVerDate 11-SEP-98 16:29 Mar 27, 2000 Jkt 061080 PO 00000 Frm 00211 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 K:\HEARINGS\61080.TXT WAYS3 PsN: WAYS3
209

vance the careers of corrupt union officials. Management gets what

it wants, and the union sells out employees.

Unions are supposed to be democratic organizations that represent the interests of its members. Unfortunately, this is not the

case at the Social Security Administration headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland. The real business of the union is to protect the

position of union officers and, if possible, advance them to a national union office. They use their offices to provide employment

opportunities to their family members and their friends, to obtain

promotions for themselves, and to obtain retirement opportunities

that are not available to other employees. Union officers spend all

day every day on official time. They hold office for most of their careers since reelection is practically guaranteed. Favored reps receive additional time for their allegiance to the executive board.

They do not need to do additional representation to stay away from

their jobs. Many dedicated representatives have been forced out because of union politics or have left in disgust. The representatives

that remain do not have the training or the inclination to handle

arbitration or complex issues.

In the last year alone, four union officers or stewards, who have

challenged these practices or investigated union corruption, have

been removed from their positions and stripped of their duties.

They have been harassed by other activists and their property vandalized. I have been relieved of my duties twice in my 15-year career as an officer and steward with AFGE. In December 1995, I

was fired as a steward for speaking out against the pass/fail rating

system. In 1996, I decided to run for union office. I was contacted

by the same high-level union official, who only months before had

fired me, and I was offered a deal. I would be given 100 percent

official time for the rest of my career if I did not embarrass union

officials. This same offer was made to another candidate. I declined

the offer and was elected third vice president of the local. I was removed from this position in October 1997 for investigating financial

irregularities in the union and uncovering election fraud in the

local. Another factor that made me unpopular with the union

bosses was that I continued to work at my regular job 15 or 20

hours per week, and I still handled a heavier case load than other

union officers. There is no reason why my colleagues could not do

the same.

In my opinion—or it is my opinion that partnership and a selfserving union have severely damaged the agency. Employees dislike pass/fail ratings. Award panels have caused friction among employees and are universally viewed as unfair and an invasion of

privacy. Managers are powerless because they do not have the ability to reward or discipline employees. These misguided policies are

affecting the agency’s ability to serve the public and should not be

allowed to continue.

I would encourage your Subcommittee to take action to eliminate

pass/fair ratings and award panels. I would encourage you to end

partnership or severely limit its scope. I recommend that union activists spend at least 50 percent of their time at their government

jobs. I would also recommend that managers verify that official

time is spent only on union activities.

210

In conclusion, I believe that the issues of partnership and union

activity at SSA have a dramatic effect on employee morale, and,

therefore, are as important as any issue facing the agency in coming years. For without the commitment and dedication of SSA employees, all the agency’s initiatives are doomed to failure.

Thank you for allowing me to express my concerns.

[The prepared statement follows:]

Statement of John Reusing, Claims Authorizer, Division of International

Operations, Social Security Administration, Baltimore, Maryland; and

Third Vice President, American Federation of Government Employees

Local 1923

My name is John Reusing and I have been an employee at the Social Security

Administration in Baltimore, Md. for twenty-five years. I am currently a claims authorizer in the Agency’s Division of International Operations. I have been active in

Unions for 30 years; and I am currently the third vice president of AFGE Local

1923, where I have served as a steward or an officer for 15 years. Despite the demands of my Union position, I have always felt an obligation to spend a portion of

my time working for the taxpayers by performing the duties of my job. This practice

has allowed me to be a more effective advocate of employee concerns and meet my

dual obligation to the taxpayers and SSA employees. Unfortunately, many of my

Union colleagues do not share my views.

The Union rarely consults employees on major issues and often does not inform

the employees of the decisions it makes. Union activists in my Local do not believe

they are accountable to management or the employees. There is virtually no supervision of officers and stewards by management or Union officials. This has led to

rampant abuse of official time. Union officers usually conduct internal Union business on official time. They attend Union meetings, campaign for Union office and

work on the Union budget while on official time. Employees have observed Union

activists selling real estate, working at Camden Yards stadium and doing home

maintenance while on official time. On many occasions I have seen my colleagues

using official time to go shopping, conduct personal business or pursue hobbies such

as fishing, golf and record collecting. However, the most common complaint of employees and managers is that the Union officials are just not there. They are on official time but they are not on site. Official time has also been used for political activity. Training meetings have been used to rally stewards to support political candidates. Union dues have also been used for political contributions. When these

abuses are discovered, no action is taken. Management has learned that it can get

anything it wants from the Union if it grants enough official time.

Union representatives have learned how to use the EEO process to get unlimited

official time. Complaints that could have been resolved under the less costly grievance process are filed under EEO so the steward can get more time. EEO time does

not count against the Agency’s labor relations budget, and therefore, probably did

not show up in the OIG audit.

The partnership agreement is probably the worst thing that has happened to SSA

employees and the taxpayers. With partnership came the implementation of pass/

fail ratings and award panels. These changes have lowered morale and reduced productivity. The OIG report grossly underestimated the time spent on partnership.

Most people involved in partnership committees are not Union activists; some are

not even members. They serve on award panels, work groups, and as facilitators.

Award committees are the worst aspect of partnership. Each year about 10% of

the employees in my office spend two or more weeks giving out awards. For the

most part they give awards to themselves and their friends. When employees complain to the Union, they are told that they don’t have a case. If they file an EEO

complaint, a high ranking official in the Union interferes in the investigation. Partnership councils are also being used to advance the careers of corrupt Union officials. Management gets what it wants, and the Union sells out the employees.

Unions are supposed to be democratic organizations that represent the interests

of their members. Unfortunately, this is not the case at the Social Security Administration headquarters in Baltimore, Md. The real business of the Union is to protect

the position of Union officers and, if possible, advance them to a national Union office. They use their offices to provide employment opportunities to their family

members and their friends, to obtain promotions for themselves, and to obtain special retirement opportunities that are not available to other employees. Union officers spend all day, every day on official time. They hold office for most of their careers since reelection is practically guaranteed. Favored reps receive additional offiVerDate 11-SEP-98 16:29 Mar 27, 2000 Jkt 061080 PO 00000 Frm 00213 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 K:\HEARINGS\61080.TXT WAYS3 PsN: WAYS3
211

cial time for their allegiance to the executive board, therefore, they do not need to

do additional representation to stay away from their jobs. Many dedicated representatives have been forced out because of Union politics or have left in disgust.

The representatives that remain do not have the training or the inclination to handle an arbitration or complex issues.

In the last year alone four Union officers and stewards, who have challenged

these practices or investigated Union corruption, have been removed from their positions and stripped of their duties. They have been harassed by other activists and

their property vandalized. I have been relieved of my duties twice in my fifteen year

career as an officer and steward with AFGE. In December, 1995 I was fired as a

steward for speaking out against the pass/fail rating system. In 1996 I decided to

run for Union office. I was contacted by the same high ranking Union official, who

only months before had fired me, and I was offered a deal. I would be given 100%

official time for the rest of my career as long as I did not run for office and embarrass Union officials. This same offer was made to another candidate. I declined the

offer and was elected third vice president of the Local. I was removed from this position in October,1997 for investigating financial irregularities in the Union and uncovering election fraud in the Local. Another factor that made me unpopular with

the Union bosses was that I continued to work at my regular job for 15 or 20 hours

per week, and I still handled a heavier case load than the other Union officers.

There is no reason why my colleagues could not do the same.

It is my opinion that partnership and a self serving Union have severely damaged

the Agency. Employees dislike pass /fail ratings. Award panels have caused friction

among employees and are universally viewed as unfair and an invasion of privacy.

Managers are powerless because they do not have the ability to reward or discipline

employees. These misguided policies are affecting the Agency’s ability to serve the

public and should not be allowed to continue.

I would encourage your committee to take action to eliminate pass/fail ratings and

award panels. I would encourage you to end partnership or severely limit its scope.

I recommend that Union activists spend at least 50% of their time at their government jobs. I would also recommend that managers verify that official time is spent

only on Union activities.

In conclusion, I believe that the issues of partnership and Union activity at SSA

have a dramatic effect on employee morale, and therefore, are as important as any

issue facing the Agency in the coming years. For without the commitment and dedication of SSA employees all of the Agency’s initiatives are doomed to failure. Thank

you for allowing me to express my concerns on this issue.

Chairman BUNNING. Mr. Beckstrom, please.

f

STATEMENT OF JIM BECKSTROM, COMPUTER SPECIALIST,

OFFICE OF SYSTEMS, SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION,

BALTIMORE, MARYLAND

Mr. BECKSTROM. Mr. Chairman and Subcommittee Members, my

name is Jim Beckstrom. I am computer specialist in the Office of

Systems at the Social Security Administration headquarters in Baltimore. I’ve been a computer specialist since 1981. Before that, I

was a Social Security claims authorizer for 10 years beginning back

in 1971. I am member of AFGE local 1923, and I am the bargaining unit cochair of the Office of Systems Partnership Council.

The Office of Systems handles computer programs and operations

for Social Security nationwide. My own job involves establishing

and maintaining Social Security numbers and earnings records for

millions of Americans. A few years ago, it could take as long as 2

years to correct someone’s earnings record. Now, we can do it within a week. We in Systems are proud that we have anticipated and

addressed potential year 2000 computer problems early, and that

today Social Security is a model agency in its readiness for the new

millennium. I’m proud of the work that my office does, and I beVerDate 11-SEP-98 16:29 Mar 27, 2000 Jkt 061080 PO 00000 Frm 00214 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 K:\HEARINGS\61080.TXT WAYS3 PsN: WAYS3
212

lieve that our Systems Partnership is a powerful tool in addressing

the issues before us.

I would like to thank the Subcommittee for giving me this opportunity to speak about the value the union brings to Social Security

through its partnership with management. As a long-time employee of SSA, I have had the opportunity to experience both the

workplace environment before we had our labor-management partnership and the environment we are creating since our partnership

began. Under partnership, we share a focus on informally resolving

problems and facilitating the work of SSA, rather than fighting and

obstructing each other’s efforts.

Partnership at the Office of Systems began in November 1995,

when we received training that laid the groundwork for our Partnership Council. The Systems Partnership Council has met regularly since February 1996. I believe the Partnership Council has

been a contributor to the success of systems at SSA. We recognize

that the nature of government work has changed. We must do

more with less. While this creates many challenges, it also presents

the opportunity to make work more meaningful and satisfying. Our

partnership works to help SSA meet these challenges successfully,

effectively, and humanely.

Like all organizations today, our office has gone through several

reorganizations to develop the most effective ways to carry out our

mission. Even the best thought-out reorganizations are disruptive

and can create a great deal of anxiety among employees. In the

past, when the union and management saw each other as adversaries and had little trust for one another, reorganizations frequently

were contentious and would become bogged down in traditional

labor-management roles. Our partnership has worked hard to facilitate reorganizations to make them as smooth and efficient as

possible.

We do this by working to identify and address potential problems

up front, before they become major stumbling blocks. The union

helps bring the ideas and insights of frontline workers to the process, avoiding costly mistakes or conflicts down the line. We believe

that office changes are better planned and better implemented because the union and management work together on them in partnership. It’s just common sense: if you talk with each other before

making changes, there will be less contention even when people

disagree.

Social Security, like other agencies, is trying to change the ratio

of managers to employees to be more responsive and cost effective.

Part of that process involves looking at team leaders in the workplace. Our partnership is monitoring a pilot program to better define the work of team leaders. We want to ensure that frontline

workers are not penalized and that team leaders are focused on

project accomplishment and less on administration—in other

words, doing the work rather than writing about it.

One of the important issues our partnership has taken on is communication within the workplace. We established a work group to

identify bottlenecks in the flow of information and to find ways to

keep employees informed about and engaged in the agency. Our

goal is to help connect employees more closely to the mission and

213

direction of the agency—to foster a sense of ownership in Social Security’s goals and mission.

In this era of frequent statutory change, technological innovation,

shrinking budgets, and with more expected of each employee, it is

vital that each worker understand how his or her performance contributes to the organization as a whole. I believe that facilitating

communication to increase employees’ sense of ownership of their

work is a fundamental value of labor-management partnership.

Our partnership works on a broad range of issues, from traditional working conditions to joint efforts to find better ways to deliver service to the American people. I believe that partnership has

helped us avoid unnecessary conflicts and focus more on solutions

and results. The union has helped bring the knowledge and experience of frontline workers like myself to the process. We have a lot

to contribute. Under partnership the efforts of managers, employees, and the union are brought together to find better ways to do

our jobs. Of course, as in any other joint effort, there is room for

improvement in our partnership, but I believe the best interests of

the public, of Social Security beneficiaries, and of all Social Security workers are well served by a continuation of our union-management partnership.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement follows:]

Statement of Jim Beckstrom, Computer Specialist, Office of Systems, Social

Security Administration, Baltimore, Maryland

INTRODUCTION

Mr. Chairman and Subcommittee members, my name is Jim Beckstrom. I am a

Computer Specialist in the Office of Systems at the Social Security Administration

headquarters in Baltimore. I have been a Computer Specialist since 1981. Before

that, I was a Social Security Claims Authorizer for ten years, starting in 1971. I

am a member of AFGE Local 1923 and I co-chair the Office of Systems Partnership

Council.

The Office of Systems handles computer programs and operations for Social Security nationwide. My own job involves establishing and maintaining Social Security

numbers and earnings records for millions of Americans. A few years ago it could

take as long as two years to correct someone’s earnings record—now we can do it

within one week. We in Systems are proud that we have anticipated and addressed

potential Year 2000 computer problems early, and that today Social Security is a

model agency in its readiness for the new millennium. I’m proud of the work my

office does, and I believe that our Systems Partnership is a powerful tool in addressing the issues before us.

I would like to thank the Subcommittee for giving me this opportunity to speak

about the value the Union brings to Social Security through its partnership with

management. As a long-time employee of SSA, I have had the opportunity to experience both the workplace environment before we had our labor-management partnership and the environment we are creating since our partnership began. Under partnership, we share a focus on informally resolving problems and facilitating the work

of SSA rather than fighting and obstructing each other’s efforts.

PARTNERSHIP AT THE OFFICE OF SYSTEMS

Partnership at the Office of Systems began in November, 1995, when we received

training that laid the groundwork for our Partnership Council. The Council has met

regularly since February, 1996. I believe the Partnership Council has been a contributor to the success of systems at SSA. We recognize that the nature of government work has changed. We must do more with less. While this creates many challenges, it also presents the opportunity to make work more meaningful and satisfying. Our partnership works to help SSA meet these challenges successfully, effectively, and humanely.

214

PARTNERSHIP EFFORTS

Reorganizations

Like all large organizations today, our office has gone through several reorganizations to develop the most effective ways to carry out our mission. Even the best

thought-out reorganizations are disruptive and can create great anxiety among employees. In the past, when the union and management saw eachother as adversaries

and had little trust for one another, reorganizations frequently were contentious and

would become bogged down in traditional labor-management roles. Our partnership

has worked hard to facilitate reorganizations to make them as smooth and efficient

as possible.

We do this by working to identify and address potential problems up front, before

they become major stumbling blocks. The Union helps bring the ideas and insights

of frontline workers to the process, avoiding costly mistakes or conflicts down the

line. We believe that office changes are better planned and better implemented because the Union and management work together on them in partnership. It’s just

common sense: if you talk with each other before making changes, things will be

less contentious even when people disagree.

Team Leaders

Social Security, like other agencies, is trying to change the ratio of managers to

employees to be more responsive and cost-effective. Part of that process involves

looking at team leaders in the work place. Our partnership is monitoring a pilot program to better define the role of team leaders. We want to ensure that frontline

workers are not penalized, and that team leaders are more focused on project accomplishment and less on administration—in other words, doing the work rather

than writing about it.

Communication

One of the important issues our partnership has taken on is communication within the workplace. We established a work group to identify bottlenecks in the flow

of information and find ways to keep employees informed about and engaged in the

agency. Our goal is to help connect employees more closely to the mission and direction of the agency—to foster a sense of ownership in Social Security’s goals and mission.

In this era of frequent statutory change, technological innovation, shrinking budgets, and with more expected of each employee, it is vital that each worker understand how his or her performance contributes to the organization as a whole. I believe that facilitating communication to increase employees’ sense of ownership of

their work is a fundamental value of labor-management partnership.

CONCLUSION

Our partnership works on a broad range of issues from traditional working conditions to joint efforts to find better ways to deliver service to the American people.

I believe that partnership has helped us avoid unnecessary conflicts and focus more

on solutions and results. The Union has helped bring the knowledge and experience

of frontline workers like myself to the process. We have a lot to contribute. Under

partnership the efforts of managers, employees, and the Union are brought together

to find better ways to do our jobs. Of course, as in any joint effort, there is room

for improvement in our partnership, but I believe the best interests of the public,

of Social Security beneficiaries, and of all Social Security workers are well-served

by a continuation of our union-management partnership.

Chairman B

Mr. Schampers.

UNNING. Thank you.

f

STATEMENT OF JIM SCHAMPERS, DISTRICT MANAGER,

SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION, WACO, TEXAS

Mr. SCHAMPERS. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Members of

the Subcommittee.

I am the district manager of the Waco, Texas, Social Security Office, and I have served in this capacity for 11 years; and have been

215

an employee of the Social Security Administration for over 25

years. During my tenure with SSA, I have served in many positions and in seven different districts.

I am here today in response to a request from the Subcommittee

to discuss the use of official time in Social Security.

In 1996, GAO conducted a study on official time, and that study

verified that SSA had 145 employees who had been taken out of

production and were working full time for the union. These employees were doing absolutely no work under the job description under

which they were hired and being paid. In addition, the study verified that there were 1,800 other employees working part time in

union-only work.

Yesterday, the head of OIG told you that the number of full timers had remained close to the same in fiscal year 1997, at 141 employees. But the number of other employees who spend time in

union activities had grown from 1,800 to 2,144. OIG also reported

that the stated costs of these union activities totaled $14.7 million.

And please let me point out to you that this cost does not include

the cost of union time spent in partnership activities; this is only

in representational activities.

To put this in perspective, I come to here from—to this meeting

from Texas, and, like other States in the Southwest we’re going

through record—a record heat wave with no rain. And if you drive

the highways in Texas, you’ll see brown and dried up fields, where

many farmers are threatened with bankruptcy. Based on the $14.7

million costs that OIG identified, and by the way, which a lot of

us consider conservative, it would take the FICA taxes of about

9,000 farmers to support the union activities, and more when you

factor in the time spent in partnership activities.

At the beginning of this decade, we only had a few dozen or so

employees spending their time on union work. Now, only 6 or 7

years later, the number of employees spending time—their time in

the union and union activities has grown to over 2,000. Now, contrary to what was said this morning, I am not against unions. I

really do believe that we need a union in this organization, and

there is definitely a role for the union in SSA. But I, like the many

hundreds of managers I’ve talked to in the last 3 or 4 years, have

problems with the way official time is used in that there are no

controls. And all what we’re asking for is just better and tighter

controls in the process.

SSA is slated to lose 4,500 employees in the 5-year period that

ends in 1999. While we’re downsizing to meet this goal, we’re also

losing production employees to the union. And during this same

time, our workloads have skyrocketed, with an aging baby-boomer

population, increased disability claims, welfare reform, increases in

continuing disability reviews, SSI high risk cases and their attached redeterminations, prisoner workloads, and numerous other

programs and requirements which have been added to our job in

the last several years.

Common sense would tell us that while we have a shrinking staff

resource, we should have a corresponding decrease in the representational positions in SSA. But we’re seeing just the opposite happen. During the time of our dwindling resources, we have seen an

explosion in the number of employees working in union-only activiVerDate 11-SEP-98 16:29 Mar 27, 2000 Jkt 061080 PO 00000 Frm 00218 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 K:\HEARINGS\61080.TXT WAYS3 PsN: WAYS3
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ties. We believe this happens mainly because our bank time system

within this agency and the union’s ability because of this to designate any employee at any place at any time to work as a fulltime union rep or part-time union representative with no management control and with no regard to agency needs.

The agency has implemented new procedures to track union

time, and hopefully these will yield better information. But our

bank time procedures, I believe, are the basis for many of our problems; and basically, what we’re saying is that the official time used

is a budgetary issue. And this agency needs to control its budget,

its staff. Congress dictates staffing positions for all parts of this organization, and this is one area where no one but the union can

control who becomes a member or an employee of the union.

I’ll be happy to answer questions later on.

[The prepared statement follows:]

Statement of Jim Schampers, District Manager, Social Security

Administration, Waco, Texas

I am the District Manager for the Waco, Texas Social Security Field Office. I have

served in this capacity for 11 years and have been an employee of the Social Security Administration for over 25 years. During my tenure with SSA, I have served

in many positions in seven different districts and have served in a management capacity for 22 years.

Like thousands of front-line managers and employees across the country, I am extremely proud to be a part of SSA’s unique tradition of public service. I love my job

and this agency and I want to see SSA prosper so that we can continue to provide

the quality of service we provided in past years.

I am here today in response to a request from this subcommittee to discuss the

use of Social Security trust funds to pay for employee union activities. Specifically,

I will address the activities of Social Security employees who conduct union business

on official time.

In 1996 GAO, reported showed that SSA has approximately 160 employees who

perform no work for the agency, but instead spend 100% of their time in union activities. In addition, GAO verified that over 1,800 other employees spend from 25%

to 75% of their time in union activities. The GAO report also pointed out that SSA

spends up to seven times more money per represented employee than any other

agency. And, like the many, many other managers in SSA, I believe these numbers

are not only conservative, but are growing. In fact, at the beginning of this decade

we only had a few dozen full-time and part-time union employees. Now, only a few

years later, literally thousands of employees work either full time or part time in

union activities.

Under mandated streamlining requirements, SSA is slated to lose 4,500 employees before the end of 1999. We have been downsizing in our efforts to meet this goal.

However, while losing production staff during the last few years due to streamlining, we have lost even more production employees to the union. In the meantime,

our workloads have skyrocketed with the aging of the baby boomer population, Welfare Reform, SSI High Risk Redeterminations, increased Continuing Disability Reviews, Prisoner workloads, and numerous other added programs and requirements.

I believe that permitting union employee expansion at this critical juncture is illadvised. In fact, the opposite should happen. As the agency loses employees, we

should need a smaller representational staff and we should strive to keep our resources in production serving the American public.

PARTNERSHIP

You asked me to present my understanding of the definition of Partnership and

my experiences and perspective on the impact of Partnership.

In 1993, President Clinton issued a directive to Federal agencies mandating the

establishment of partnerships between the union and management. The concept of

partnership, as I believe the President envisioned, was good in that it asked management and the union to work in close cooperation in streamlining processes, improving service and resolving problems. However, in reality, we have not fully

achieved that spirit of partnership. At the national and regional levels, we have

achieved some success through our partnership councils, reaching agreement in

217

some areas in which we had before been unable to reach agreement. But, in general,

I believe that local field offices have not fully realized the benefits of Partnership.

In my opinion, Partnership is not yet fully successful for several reasons:

1. Early in the process, agreements were reached between the agency and the

union establishing partnership councils only at the national and regional levels.

Local field offices have historically enjoyed close working relationships, (informal

partnerships), in which the local union steward, employees and management worked

together as a cohesive team in resolving problems, improving processes and finding

better ways to serve the public. We did not call it ‘‘Partnership,’’ but that is exactly

what existed in every successful field office operation.

When the Partnership Councils were established at only the national and regional

level, both local management and employees were excluded from the Partnership

process. The unstated message was clear that Partnership was something that existed only between top agency officials and the union.

Adding to that perception was the clear message given out by the union that there

were to be no partnership activities at the local level. In fact, the union filed a grievance against SSA’s use of teams in field offices and many of our long existing local

workgroups which had served us well in the past were now labeled by the union

as ‘‘teams’’ and we were told to cease and desist with those activities. When that

happened, local cooperation was stymied.

2. The second and probably most important impediment to full partnership is the

fact that the union and the agency have different goals. While the agency’s goal is

clearly service to the taxpayers, the union’s goal, as stated by the past President

of AFGE, is union building. With such divergent goals, Partnership at the national

and regional levels does not always work smoothly and it may be years before we

consistently reap benefits at those levels.

On the other hand, it has been my experience that local field office union stewards tend to share the same aims as local management. They are actually performing the job and want to cooperate in improving our service and worklife. Truly successful Partnership must begin at the local level.

3. Another reason partnership has not been fully achieved, I believe, is that union

employees do not seem to be bound by the same Standards of Conduct all other employees must follow. It is not uncommon for union officials to resort to name calling

and abusive language (while on Official Time), then hide behind the phrase ‘‘robust

discussion.’’ I had a situation in my own office in which a visiting union employee

called me a ‘‘goddamned monkey’’ and threatened me with the statement, ‘‘Don’t you

know who you are dealing with? Boys like you end up missing and even your family

will never find you. You know what I mean, boy?’’ This statement was made while

he was poking his finger in my chest. When I filed a grievance on this issue, the

union responded by saying it was acceptable language because it was robust discussion. Both the contract and our Standards of Conduct require employees to behave

in a courteous and non-threatening manner. Appointment to a union position should

not exempt the representative from this basic requirement.

While union employees are permitted to talk to management or any other employee in this manner at one moment, it is difficult to consider them full partners

in the next moment.

OFFICIAL TIME

You asked me to describe how official time is granted and monitored.

Several years ago, the agency and the union reached an agreement which established a national bank of hours to be used by union employees in representational

activities. The bank of hours was set at 100,000 hours per year and it was envisioned that this bank of time would be sufficient to cover all union representational

activities. Time actually spent in bargaining was not to be counted in the bank.

However, from a Field Manager’s perspective, we see at least three major problems

with the bank procedure:

1. The bank was set up to be cumulative in that any unused hours in the bank

would be carried over and added to the next year’s new allocation. For example, if

there were 50,000 hours left in the bank at the end of the fiscal year, then the union

would have 150,000 hours at it’s disposal next year. The agency, on the other hand,

must use all of it’s money in the fiscal year or lose it. Because bank hours can only

be used for employee time, they are funded directly out of our staffing (FTE) budget.

The union’s ability to carry over bank hours actually commits the agency to future

staffing levels for the union, long before Congress even approves a budget or staffing

levels for the agency.

Because of the cumulative provision in bank hours, there is no incentive on the

part of the union to accurately report bank time usage. In fact, the incentive is to

218

under report bank time so that their stock of bank hours continues to grow. The

bank balance has grown now to the point that it far exceeds the annual 100,000

hour allocation.

2. Dispute situations frequently arise in which the union reports time in one of

the bargaining categories and management believes the official time usage should

be deducted from the bank. In cases such as this, current procedures require SSA

to voice the complaint with the union, then the union decides whether it has reported incorrectly. If the union fails to reverse their decision, the agency’s only recourse is file an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) complaint. The agency has a history

of never filing a ULP against the union, hence, the union rarely reverses their decision.

This situation happens frequently. For example, in one office a union representative left his office for five days and visited other offices. In those offices, he stayed

in the breakrooms until employees came in, then he visited with the employees, but

had no contact with the office managers. Upon return to his own office, the union

representative presented the manager with a SSA–75 stating his had spent 40

hours in mid-term bargaining. The agency disagreed with the SSA–75 stating the

activities fell into the bank category and the entire 40 hours should have been deducted from the bank. When the case was referred back to the union, they changed

the form to charge only 8 hours to the bank and 32 hours to mid-term bargaining.

This issue was dropped at this point, even though 32 hours were incorrectly charged

to non-bank time.

In another case a full-time union representative in a Teleservice Center routinely

charges almost all of her time to ‘‘Mid-term Bargaining’’ rather than to the bank.

The manager has protested this flagrant mis-reporting many times and in each instance the case was referred back to the union to review their own decision and

each time the union upheld its original decision. The union representative continues

to report her hours inappropriately to non-bank time and management has basically

given up on the issue. There is a standing joke in the office that the union representative is bargaining with herself again.

3. The SSA–75 is a poorly designed form and does not solicit enough information

for management to make a meaningful decision in approving official time. They usually present the SSA–75 with minimal or no information. If questioned, they frequently state we are interfering with union business.

This procedure definitely needs correction. However, it will take legislative action

to correct the problem as I believe the agency will never be able to negotiate a

change with the union in this area.

The following changes need to be made:

1. Do away with the cumulative provision in the bank procedure. Unused bank

hours should expire at the end of the fiscal year in the same manner that the agency’s unused staff hours expired at the close of the year. There should be absolutely

no carry over in the bank procedure.

2. Establish a new bank allocation and increase or decrease it in subsequent years

in direct proportion to the increase/decrease in bargaining unit staff. 100,000 hours

is far too excessive as the union has only used a portion of this allocation each year.

The new beginning annual allocation should be based on the average bank time

used over the last five years. This would factor in the years before SSA began its

latest round of staff reductions.

After the new bank allocation is established, it should be assumed that all full

time and part time employees’ tour of duty hours will be deducted as bank time unless the union establishes to management’s satisfaction that their work hours

should be charged to non-bank time. Currently, we have many full timers and part

timers who report the majority of their time as non-bank categories such as ‘‘midterm bargaining’’ when managers are not told what the issue was or who they were

bargaining with.

3. In dispute situations, the final decision should made by the agency and not the

union. Should the union disagree, they can use the grievance procedures for appeal.

Currently, disputes are ‘‘resolved’’ by the union. This is completely unacceptable.

When the manager states he disagrees with the union and cannot approve the official time, the union then makes the final decision and they approve their own official time! The union has no authority to approve leave, overtime, payroll or any personnel issue, yet responsibility for final decisions on official time disputes rest with

the union. This authority should be moved back into the hands of management with

the burden of proof shifted to the union in dispute cases.

4. The form SSA–75 should be redesigned and should solicit sufficient information

for management to make an informed decision in approving official time.

Congress has mandated that SSA track time spent in union activities. In response

to this mandate, SSA developed the Official Union Time Tracking System (OUTTS).

219

Unfortunately, the OUTTS system only automates the existing poorly designed system. OUTTS did not correct the problem we have with unreported or incorrectly reported official time. Nor does it address any of the other problems mentioned above.

EMPLOYEE MORALE AND REDUCTION

You asked me for my viewpoints on the effect of official time on employee morale

and production.

We usually have very little problem with official time used by the local stewards

as they represent employees at the local level and participate with management in

the bargaining process. We have done this for years, even before official time became a problem. However, official time used by full time and part time employees

constitutes and different problem.

During this time of staff reductions, most employees are working so hard that

many of them go home in tears at the end of the day. They are frustrated by the

work they cannot get to and they despair in knowing that each folder left on the

desk at the end of the day represents a claimant who is not yet receiving a check.

As we lose people, we are not replacing them and the work is divided yet again

among the remaining employees.

With this in mind, think of how our employees feel when they look across the

aisle and see a full time union employee reading a newspaper or a novel or playing

a video game. Or when they see a part-time union employee with a workload reduced by 50% or 75% while their work is divided among the other employees in the

office. Employees know when one of their peers is not performing successfully and

requires too much support. A poor performing employee makes everyone’s job

around him harder. And how do these employees feel when they witness the union

designate him as a full-time union representative, preventing further personnel actions.

This happens quite often as, under the bank procedure with unlimited carry over

of unused hours, the union can designate anyone at anytime as a full time union

employee. In one office, an employee was performing poorly. The office had provided

extra training, mentoring, reviews and reduced workloads over a long period of

time. In addition, the employee was sent back through the basic training class for

a second time. After months of working with this her, it was decided the employee

must be removed from the job. She was called in and the manager explained that

they had reached the point where she was to be removed from the job and he handed her the official notice with appeals rights. The employee snickered, tore up the

notice and threw it back into the manager’s lap. She then went on to explain that

the notice could not apply to her because she had been designated as a full time

union employee. Coworkers now complain because their peer sits around all day

reading novels while they do her work.

I must say that we do derive many benefits from the union and in no way want

to indicate that we should eliminate their role in SSA. My point is simply that we

must control the growth in the use of official time just as we control all areas of

our budget.

I hope that I have addressed the concerns which you asked me to address.

Chairman B

Mr. Hardesty.

UNNING. Thank you.

f

STATEMENT OF EDWIN M. HARDESTY, DISTRICT MANAGER,

SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION, TULSA, OKLAHOMA

Mr. HARDESTY. My name’s Ed Hardesty. I’m the Social Security

district manager in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I’ve worked for the Social Security Administration for over 25 years, and I’ve provided a statement for the record which specifically speaks to the concerns that

you asked me to address.

The information that I have provided is from the perspective of

a district manager who works in an office that has three full-time

representatives. Again, I’d like to clarify that I am not against

unions. I have enjoyed throughout my career friendly, cooperative

relationships with my union partners. I was asked to address speVerDate 11-SEP-98 16:29 Mar 27, 2000 Jkt 061080 PO 00000 Frm 00222 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 K:\HEARINGS\61080.TXT WAYS3 PsN: WAYS3
220

cifically how official time, as we now have it, impacts our day-today working.

In advance of the use of official time, each properly designated

union official is to submit a request to the appropriate management official. Official time is to be approved if it’s for an appropriate purpose, and the amount of the time requested is reasonable. Official time is not to be approved if it’s not appropriate, or

if it interferes with critical operational needs. This procedure has

worked well with local stewards whose primary function is to provide public service, and who only request official time for a specific

purpose. Full-time union officials are not subjected to the same

scrutiny. They do not request approval for official time in advance.

They submit the approval form after the time has been used. They

do not report the nature of their activities.

We recently implemented a system to report official time called

OUTTS. It does not change the approval process. It simply involves

us inputting the data directly into our mainframe system. It should

allow quicker and more accurate summary information, and yet the

process remains unchanged. The union officials in my office are

presently refusing to provide information concerning the number of

bank hours assigned to authorized users. I cannot provide the information that you requested concerning the degree to which official time for union activities is being abused, since I am not privy

to the activities of our full-time union representatives.

You asked me for my suggestions as to how our system for dealing with abuse of official time could be improved. For all practical

purposes, we have no system in effect to deal with abuses of official

time by full-time union representatives. I was told by one of our

full-time union reps that it was the intent of Congress that we

have a strong, independent, taxpayer supported union that was

free from management control and scrutiny and that I, therefore,

had no right to be privy to any of their activities. I told him that

I would welcome a clear mandate from Congress which would include a formal job description entitled union representative, with

outlined appropriate duties.

Today, our full-time representatives occupy positions such as

Claims Representative, but perform none of the duties called for by

their job description. If it is the intent of Congress to have independent, full-time union representatives supported by tax dollars,

I would welcome a clear mandate, then acknowledge that working

full time for the union is, indeed, appropriate. And we could eliminate the tremendous stress that we now feel from the present system that presupposes that the primary duties for the staff that we

hire and train will be to provide direct public service.

The use of agency time by full-time officials has had a devastating effect on the morale of our staff. Most of our staff members cannot accept the fact that union officials do not work alongside them

in providing direct public service. A day never passes when we

have a waiting room full of people and backlogged cases awaiting

action that someone on our staff does not come to me and ask why

our full timers cannot be required to help out.

I enjoy a friendly personal relationship with our full-time union

representatives. The problems that we face in dealing with the use

of official time are largely systemic. If we want to improve in this

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area, we must deal with the problem upstream with systemic improvements, rather than addressing individual occurrences.

I hope that I’ve addressed the concerns that you have asked me

to discuss. And I’ll be happy to answer questions.

[The prepared statement follows:]

Statement of Edwin M. Hardesty, District Manager, Social Security

Administration, Tulsa, Oklahoma

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:

My name is Edwin M. Hardesty. I work in the Tulsa, Oklahoma District Office

of the Social Security Administration. I am the District Manager. I have worked for

the Social Security Administration for over 25 years. I am here today, not as an official spokesperson for the agency, but in response to the subpoena that I received.

In order to address the issues to which you have required me to respond it is necessary that I provide a brief explanation of our agency’s official time policies.

Use of official time is authorized by Article 30 of our bargaining agreement. It

outlines specific procedures for the approval and use of official time. Official time

is to be used by union officials designated in writing to appropriate management

officials. Management officials are also to be notified in writing of bank time allocations for each union official. Non-bank time is only to be used for specific activities,

which include term bargaining, mid-term bargaining or consultation on management initiated changes, FLRA and Merit Systems Protection Board proceedings,

representing employees with formal Equal Employment Opportunity complaints,

and working on management initiated grievances. Agency time is not to be used for

internal union business. In advance of the use of official time each properly designated union official is to submit a request to the appropriate management official.

Official time is to be approved if it is for an appropriate purpose and in an amount

that is objectively reasonable, provided that it is to be used at an appropriate time

and place. Official time cannot be approved if it is not appropriate, or if it interferes

with an operational exigency.

This procedure has worked very well with local stewards whose primary function

is to provide public service, and who only request official time for a specific purpose

that is properly documented for the approving management official. Although higher

union officials may not provide the required notice of bank time allocations, local

stewards have generally worked in close cooperation with management to ensure

that public service is not compromised by the use of official time.

Full-time union officials are not subjected to the same scrutiny. These are individuals who are hired and trained by the agency to do agency work, but who abandon

their agency responsibilities to work full time for the union. Although they do no

agency work, they retain their agency job title, salary, and benefits. The agency also

provides all support in terms of supplies, postage, equipment, space, telephone service, fax service, photocopy machines, and other typical office support. There are no

agency restrictions on the number or location of full time union officials. A union

official can simply designate a person to be a full-time union official, and the person

can abandon their workload the following day. They are not required to give the

agency any explanation as to why the person will no longer be doing agency work,

nor are they required to explain in detail what the person will be doing. There are

three full time union officials in my office in Tulsa and another one in the

Muskogee, Oklahoma office, which is about 45 miles away. These persons do not request approval for official time in advance. They spend all of their time engaging

in union business and submit the approval form, the SSA–75, after the time has

been used. They do not report the nature of their activities. They simply self-report

after the fact the breakdown of agency and bank time. In the 31⁄2 years that I have

worked in the Tulsa office, I have never been given a bank time allocation by name

by a union official. I, therefore, have no way of knowing the balance of bank hours

for any union official.

We recently implemented a new system to report official time called OUTTS, or

Official Union Time Tracking System. In order to support this new system for reporting official time it was necessary for the designated union officials to provide

information as to the allocations of bank time assigned to each union official. The

appropriate official refused to provide the information, and I had no recourse to require that it be provided. For full-time union officials I have no controls available

to me to ensure that their time is being used appropriately, or that the number of

hours authorized users use complies with the criteria in the contract. I have no

knowledge of their activities, other than those during which I am directly interfacing with them. These instances are rare. I have no controls over the use of agency

222

time by full time union officials. I cannot provide the information that you requested

concerning the degree to which official time for union activities is being used in compliance with agency regulations, since I am not privy to the activities of our fulltime union representatives.

The use of agency time by full-time union officials has had a devastating effect

on the morale of our staff. Our workloads are building and our resources are dwindling. It is disheartening for staff members to be faced with backlogs of pending

items, overflowing waiting rooms, and telephone calls that need to be answered or

returned while they see employees that cannot be required to assist in processing

the workloads.

Allegations of abuse of official time are to be brought to the attention of the local

management official. The management official is to then discuss the matter with the

local or council president as appropriate. Allegations can then be referred to higher

management officials. This process is ineffective, since full time officials are not required to discuss the substance of their activity and there is virtually no way do

verify their allegations. Pursuance of abuse of official time allegations by full-time

union representatives is virtually non-existent in my experience.

You asked me for my suggestions as to how our system for dealing with abuse

of official time could be improved. In our present structure with our full-time union

representatives we, for all practical purposes, have no system in effect to deal with

abuses of official time. Through past practices they have been exempted from the

policies and scrutiny that is applied to our stewards whose primary function is to

do agency work. I was told by one of our full-time union representatives that it was

the intent of Congress that we have a strong, independent, taxpayer supported

union that was free from management control and scrutiny, and that I, therefore,

had no right to be privy to any of their activities. I told him that I would welcome

such a clear mandate from Congress, which would include a formal job description

entitled, union representative, that outlined appropriate duties. Today our full-time

union representatives occupy positions such as claims representative, but perform

none of the duties called for by their job description. If it is the clear intent of Congress to have independent full-time union representatives supported by tax dollars,

I would welcome a clear mandate. We could then acknowledge that working fulltime for the union was indeed appropriate and we could eliminate the stress that

we now feel from present system that presupposes that the primary duties for the

staff that we hire and train will be to provide direct service to the public.

You requested that I share with you my understanding of the definition of Partnership, how Partnership time is measured, and its impact on service to the public

and employee morale. Partnership refers to the mandate that agencies form Partnership Councils to work in collaboration with their unions to improve service to

the public and to reduce the expense to taxpayers that result from adversarial relationships. Partnership Councils have been formed at various levels of our agency

and have worked on several issues. Throughout the over 18 years that I have been

a manager in the Social Security Administration I have enjoyed wonderful, productive, collaborative relationships with local union stewards. Prior to coming to Tulsa

in 1995 I had never had a formal grievance, unfair labor practice charge, or EEO

complaint filed against me or any subordinate supervisor. Without any formal rules

or charters we simply worked together in partnership to solve problems, reduce

waste, streamline processes, improve working conditions, and address employee concerns. These informal partnerships were successful because we embraced the same

aim. The aim we embraced was to improve service to our external customers, to improve working conditions for our staff, and to be good stewards of the taxpayer’s dollars.

In order for the formal Partnerships that we now have in place to be successful,

both union and management must embrace the same aim. The aim is not negotiable. Our mutual aim must be to improve service to the public. This is a sacred

trust that we share, since the public has already paid in advance for our services

through their tax dollars. Partnerships break down and become ineffective and even

more expensive when a mutual aim is not shared. I was told by a full-time union

representative that the primary aim of the union was to see that institutional union

rights were maintained and that the union was strengthened. Without a common

aim a truly effective Partnership is jeopardized. I cannot say that our formal Partnerships have significantly improved service to the public or employee morale. We

have recently implemented a Partnership/Labor Management Relations Activities

Time Accounting Form to track formal Partnership time. I have not yet seen any

summary data from this new accounting procedure.

I enjoy a friendly personal relationship with our full-time union representatives.

The problems that we face in dealing with the use of official time are largely systemic. If we want to improve in this area, we must deal with the problem upstream

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with systemic improvements rather than in addressing individual occurrences. I

hope that I have addressed the concerns that you asked me to discuss.

Chairman B

I’ll start the questioning by asking anybody on the panel to reUNNING. Thank you, Mr. Hardesty.

f

spond in whatever order they want to take.

Yesterday, we heard about a number of Social Security offices in

New England who for 20 years, and through this Christmas, will

be given up to four hours on the taxpayer to go Christmas shopping. Do you think that’s right, wrong, or do your offices do that

or is it in part of your collective bargaining agreements around the

country? Yes, sir, Mr. Reusing.

Mr. REUSING. It’s not part of the——

Chairman BUNNING. Please, please put the mikes up to your

mouths, because you almost have to eat them.

Mr. REUSING. It’s not part of the collective bargaining agreement.

It is a common practice. I don’t believe it was originally intended

for people to go Christmas shopping. In central office, there’s such

a large amount of employees and because of the holiday, I believe

that the original intent was to clear people out of that area for traffic concerns and safety concerns, because of the heavy traffic. And

I don’t have a real in-depth knowledge of that reason why it was

originally started, but it does exist; and it’s not part of the agreement.

Chairman BUNNING. Anybody else?

Mr. HARDESTY. That’s not a practice in our office.

Mr. SCHAMPERS. It’s not a practice in my office, and I don’t think

it’s a practice in my region. I can’t speak for other regions. In terms

of do I believe it’s correct, I would not do that in my office.

Chairman BUNNING. Mr. Beckstrom.

Mr. BECKSTROM. No, it’s not a process—part of.

Chairman BUNNING. What do you think union officials are doing

on official time? How could a union official work part time at another job, like at Camden Yards ballpark? How could this happen?

Do you know of union officials working part-time jobs on official

times—official jobs elsewhere other than at the agency?

Mr. BECKSTROM. I have no knowledge of that. I never encountered it.

Chairman BUNNING. Anybody else?

Mr. REUSING. Yes, I’ve had union officials over the years tell me

that they worked other places. I’ve been made aware that union officials have been caught doing this, though I didn’t catch them myself. It was just the general knowledge around the union office.

As to how it could happen? If I went on official time today, and

remember I was offered 100 percent official time, I could be out on

my boat. I could be working another job, because my manager

wouldn’t dream of asking me where I’m going. My only requirement is to sign-in in the morning, tell them I’m going on official

time, and that’s as a steward, not as an officer. As an officer, I’m

only required to sign in and sign out for my shift. What I do in between is kind of up to me.

Chairman BUNNING. Mr. Reusing, Mr. Schampers, you have both

been threatened. Can you tell us about your experience? From

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what I know of it, it sounds like a blatant intimidation. There is

no place for that kind of behavior and particularly in our government system and in the workplace. So if you would like to share

with us.

Mr. SCHAMPERS. My personal experience happened about 3 years

ago. We had a visiting full-time union officer come to our office and

with that person came a full-time AFGE employee, who’s not a Social Security employee, but at that time worked with Social Security offices and Social Security officers, but was an AFGE employee.

And when they came into my office, they took over the break

room in the lunch room, and they had before agreed with me that

they would not set up there but would set up in an adjoining room,

which was right next door, which is our training room. And I’d had

several employees who had complained about them blocking their

use of the lunch room in times past. And so, we had agreed before

this meeting when these people came to visit that they would set

up next door instead of taking the break room. And so one of the

employees came to my office and said, you told me I could eat

lunch there today, but they’re there again. You told me they

wouldn’t be there. And I said let me go talk to them.

So I went up to the lunch room and asked them to move next

door. They had already set up in the room next door, but then they

were in the process of moving it into the lunch—their decorations

and equipment and displays into the lunch room. So I asked them

if they would move back, based on our agreement. And I was referred to as a monkey. Vulgarity was used. And basically, when I

insisted that they move, the union employee used his finger to poke

me in the chest and said you better be careful. People like you end

up missing, and you’re talking to the organization that can make

it happen. Do you understand what I’m talking about, boy? And I

put my hand in front of my chest and pushed his finger back and

said, is this a threat? And his response was basically, a threat? It

may not be a threat, but you damned well better listen to it.

And I later filed a grievance against this, for it broke every rule

that we have in our contract and also in Federal guidelines in

treatment of Federal employees. The union responded to the grievance, saying it was robust discussion. Our agency chose not to take

it any further than that. The next step would have been to go to

arbitration, and our agency chose not to go to arbitration on that

issue.

Chairman BUNNING. Mr. Reusing, go ahead.

Mr. REUSING. Last year, I tried to start a union reform committee. And we proposed changes to our constitution. That led to a

rather bitter campaign. Then immediately following that, we had

our general election for president and other key officers, and things

intensified at that.

During that period of time, my tires were slashed in a manner

so when it reached on the inside of the sidewall and scored the

tires. So they didn’t go flat immediately, but I had a blow out on

the road. Both tires were damaged.

Two days after that, a member of the reform committee received

a rather serious operation, and because he has a heart condition

he was in intensive care. A union activist called him while he was

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in intensive care because he may have had a heart attack, and

threatened him; said that they were going to get even. He better

stop being involved in union reform. I would consider that a form

of assault. I have received numerous phone calls in the middle of

the night—sometimes 30 or 40 a night. Other people who have run

for office on the union reform platform have had their cars damaged—about four others—they also received threatening phone

calls—actually, annoying phone calls in the middle of the night.

That’s been about the extent of it. OIG officials and officials from

the Federal Protective Service had met with us to discuss our security. So I think the agency is taking it serious.

Chairman BUNNING. Thank you. Mrs. Kennelly may inquire.

Mrs. KENNELLY. I thank the witnesses for their testimony.

Mr. Schampers, after that robust conversation incident, did anything else ever happen?

Mr. SCHAMPERS. No, ma’am. I, at that point, was ready to eject

this person from our office, but I thought before I do this with the

union, I’d better call my regional office for guidance. And the response I got was let it go. And we did.

Mrs. KENNELLY. I’ve listened very carefully to the testimony, and

obviously some of the things were very upsetting. But there also is

a little bit about the dog bites man in stories about employee and

management relationships. There are good managers. There are

bad managers. There are good employees. There are bad employees. And, I don’t know, I’ve had a long work experience, and I

would be surprised, and I think the public would be surprised, if

there were no manager-employee problems in the workplace, especially a large Federal agency. Many, many workplaces have situations that escalate and cause real stress.

But I thank you for telling us about the ones that you have experienced.

Mr. Schampers, again. You indicate that some success has been

achieved through partnership councils at the national and regional

levels, but you claim that truly successful partnerships must begin

at the local level. Now, I have two questions for you, do you think

that the local officers should have the freedom to design their own

partnership relationships? And would you say that partnership efforts are likely to vary depending on the needs of local offices?

Mr. SCHAMPERS. I think that would be yes to both questions. We

have achieved some success through partnership at the national

and regional levels. But, as our instructions are basically, that

we’re not to have partnerships at the local level at this point.

Before partnership was ever coined as a phrase, we had partnerships at the local level. I could work with my employees, my union

representative, the management members, and we would get together in work groups or staff meetings or committees to resolve

problems and to come to solutions that would benefit everybody, including the taxpayer. This has been going on for a long time. We

called it team work. Well, the agency has been restricted from

using teams and team work because there’s been a grievance filed

on that, and we tried to negotiate team work and teams with the

agency, but the negotiations broke down. And so until such time

that we can successfully negotiate the use of teams in field offices,

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we are basically restricted from using teams, team work, work

groups for that matter.

And my contention, and what I said in my written testimony was

that I can’t envision a partnership without team work. That’s the

basis of partnership in my opinion when people work together towards a common goal, and they work cooperatively with one another, respectfully with one another. Until such time that restriction on teams and team work is lifted, then there’s going to be a

restriction on partnerships in the field offices. There are, as I understand, some field offices that have gone forward with partnership councils. Those are—that’s not a practice across the country,

by and large. But I think that’s more isolated. Why they can do it

and others can’t, I don’t know. Perhaps, in some of the situations,

no one’s recognized the fact that it’s taking place. But in those offices where they do have partnership councils, I understand that

people are working together closely, as we did in times past. And

so, my response is yes, we do need to bring this down below the

national and regional level and involve employees and the managers at the front line.

Mrs. KENNELLY. Well, your answer contradicts the IG’s suggestions that partnerships should be unified throughout the country,

with every, local, regional office doing the exact same thing. And

I hear——

Mr. SCHAMPERS. Would you repeat that, please?

Mrs. KENNELLY. This was testimony that we had yesterday.

But what bothers me is that what I hear you saying this morning, except for Mr. Beckstrom, is that you don’t know what’s expected. You don’t have answers. You just know people are there,

and, in your testimony you say, you can’t ask them anything. And

you don’t know what they’re doing. And everybody’s all upset about

it. And I would think that if we carried out the report and people

knew exactly what was expected, and what they were there to do,

that it would make a much better situation than the one you’ve

come here today to describe. And I think that’s the whole reason

we had the partnership study.

Mr. Chairman, I’d just like to mention to everybody in the audience that tomorrow, July 24, we’re going to have the union’s representation here. And there have been allegations made here this

morning that have to be responded to, and certainly responded to

on the record.

But I have a feeling they’ll be an even a smaller group here to

hear that. But I do hope that we can disseminate the records so

we get answers to these allegations.

Chairman BUNNING. We do have two union—or one union official, not a member of a union. And also, another member of the

union.

Mrs. KENNELLY. Mr. Reusing.

Chairman BUNNING. Yes, he is a member of the union.

Mrs. KENNELLY. I don’t think he——

Chairman BUNNING. He is a member of the union.

Mrs. KENNELLY. You bet he is, and he’s a survivor.

Mr. BECKSTROM. Am I a union official, is that?

Mrs. KENNELLY. No, I am talking about the testimony that we’re

going to have tomorrow that I think——

227

Chairman BUNNING. We’re going to have——

Mrs. KENNELLY. What?

Chairman BUNNING. Go ahead. We’re going to have the AFGE official.

Mrs. KENNELLY. And I do think that they should have the opportunity to respond. And there were allegations made today that

have to be responded to. But, Mr. Reusing, I really commend you

for your survivorship, and your real strength in standing up to everybody. And we should congratulate you.

Mr. REUSING. Thank you.

Chairman BUNNING. Kenny.

Mr. HULSHOF. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Before I begin questions,

I just have to respond briefly to some of the statements that have

been made and part of the questions that already have been asked.

I’m concerned and a bit disappointed that some on the Subcommittee are approaching these hearings with a shrug of the shoulders.

Mrs. KENNELLY. Would the gentleman, just for a minute, let me

interrupt him? I just wanted to make sure that Mr. Reusing knew

I had a little cynicism in that statement. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. HULSHOF. I’m disappointed that Members of this Subcommittee would come here with the attitude that well, there’s a shrug of

the shoulders and that the majority of those participating in partnership agreements are hard-working, don’t abuse official time.

And I’m certainly glad, Mr. Chairman, that the Ways and Means

Committee did not take that attitude regarding the Internal Revenue Service. And I recognize that there are Members here who

gladly went to the White House yesterday for the signing ceremony

of a radical reform and restructuring of the IRS. And I think all

of us would agree that the vast majority, the 110,000 employees of

the IRS were hard-working too, and yet when we had hearings

here on Capitol Hill where people came to testify, we had to disguise their voices and put them behind partitions because they

were fearful of retribution.

And so I’m a bit concerned that Members of this Subcommittee

would say, well, the vast majority of these offices don’t abuse official time. Therefore, we should treat these stories as ‘‘Man Bites

Dog’’ stories. And for those of you who weren’t privy to the testimony yesterday from the Inspector General, this is not the tip of

the iceberg. These are not isolated cases. The Inspector General

suggests 25 percent abuse. Now that to me is not just isolated

incidences. We’re talking about widespread abuse.

Mr. Reusing, is it Reusing or Reusing?

Mr. REUSING. Reusing.

Mr. HULSHOF. Mr. Reusing, after reviewing your testimony, is it

safe to assume that you’re of the opinion that the union’s status at

SSA and partnership are not achieving service to our Nation’s seniors?

Mr. REUSING. That’s correct.

Mr. HULSHOF. Mr. Hardesty, is it safe to assume, given your

written testimony, that the activities of full-time union employees

have had a detrimental impact on service to our Nation’s seniors?

Mr. HARDESTY. It has certainly had a detrimental impact on the

morale of my office and it has taken resources from frontline service.

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Mr. HULSHOF. Mr. Beckstrom, you work at the SSA’s Baltimore

headquarters, do you think it’s inappropriate for union employees,

whose salaries are paid by the hard-working taxpayers of this

country, to work at Camden Yards on the taxpayers’ dime, is that

appropriate?

Mr. BECKSTROM. Of course not.

Mr. HULSHOF. How about shopping or playing golf, collecting

records, fishing, or engaging in political activity, as we heard documented by the Inspector General, are those appropriate uses of official time?

Mr. BECKSTROM. Absolutely not.

Mr. HULSHOF. During yesterday’s hearing, it was revealed that

the AFGE objected to four questions that appeared on initial drafts

of surveys sent to SSA employees. One of the questions was as follows: ‘‘What are typical union activities for you and what portion

of your official time do you spend on each?’’ Do any of you care to

offer an opinion or speculate on why AFGE would object to this

question? Mr. Beckstrom?

Mr. BECKSTROM. I missed the first part of your question. You’re

saying the survey was—could you repeat the——

Mr. HULSHOF. Sure. The AFGE objected to four questions that

appeared on initial drafts of surveys. The surveys were sent out by

the Inspector General——

Mr. BECKSTROM. OK.

Mr. HULSHOF [continuing]. In an attempt to find information.

And one of those questions was ‘‘What are typical activities for you

and what portion of official time do you spend on each?’’ And the

AFGE objected to that question on the survey. Why do you think

that is?

Mr. BECKSTROM. That would be speculation. I don’t really know.

Mr. HULSHOF. Mr. Reusing.

Mr. REUSING. I would think that their major reason they

wouldn’t comment is because they really don’t know either. I, as an

officer, had about 10 or 12 stewards under me, two or three I could

find. The others may be on official time, they may not be official

time. But I didn’t see them sometimes from one week to the next.

Some of my fellow officers were frequently missing in action.

But I would caution you about putting too much faith in the OIG

report. The reason for that is I read that they said there was 145

full-time union activists. Well, that’s obviously the officers that are

full time. I was a full-time officer, but I did not use that time.

That’s probably unique. There are many other stewards, not officers, who should receive eight hours per week official time and

then they can get additional official time for bargaining, arbitrations, things like that. They also get thousands of hours of official

time for EEO activity. In other words, if an employee comes in with

a complaint, I could decide that it was an EEO matter; and I could

pursue it under the EEO statutes and not count it toward the

union budget of official time. And there’s no one doing anything

about that.

Another abuse of the EEO process, when the award panel started

and your fellow employees got to decide whether or not you received an award, some of the employees who felt they weren’t properly treated filed EEO complaints because the unions, well, we

229

can’t grieve this because we’re part of the process. Some grievances

were filed but they really weren’t successful. I and some others

tried to get people their day in court by filing EEO complaints. He

had to file under EEO, a more expensive process to the taxpayer,

just to get people their day in court.

Chairman BUNNING. The gentleman’s time has expired.

Mr. HULSHOF. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman BUNNING. Mr. Neal.

Mr. NEAL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Are any of the panelists

aware of any collective bargaining agreement in your respective regions that grants time off for Christmas shopping?

Mr. SCHAMPERS. No, I’m not, no.

Mr. NEAL. No. So it was never part of any patterned bargaining?

Mr. SCHAMPERS. No.

Mr. HARDESTY. I was not aware of that practice until this morning.

Mr. SCHAMPERS. Right. I’ve heard about it but I’m not——

Mr. NEAL. So if it were to take place, it was taking place outside

of the collective bargaining agreement, would that be your hunch?

Mr. HARDESTY. Yes, sir.

Mr. SCHAMPERS. I would guess that it’s not part of our contract

and done during term for bargaining, but if there’s an agreement

between the union and management, it could have been done

through a Memorandum of Understanding, which is bargaining but

not part of the contract. I don’t know the details. I don’t know how

that occurred.

Mr. NEAL. So would you generally grant that it would be up to

management to correct, to rectify that sort of a procedure, if, in

fact, it were taking place? The management would already have

the tools to do something about that?

Mr. SCHAMPERS. If they could correct it. Now, sometimes action

is taken to correct it and were reversed later in arbitration based

on past practice.

Mr. NEAL. Right. The point I’m trying to raise is—if it took place,

and there obviously are some pieces of evidence that it occurred,

it took place outside of the collective bargaining agreement?

Mr. SCHAMPERS. Sir, I don’t have the details on that situation.

I don’t know how it took place.

Mr. NEAL. My point again, let me go back to this if I can for a

second. If this were taking place outside of the bargaining agreement, then it would be up to management to correct it. Would you

agree with that?

Mr. SCHAMPERS. Yes, I would agree with that to an extent. Management sometimes cannot correct problems because of third party

intervention.

Mr. NEAL. Right. We have gone through a kind of a new experience here with a bag over the head routine where people sit here

with a bag over their head. Some Members of the House, by the

way, put bags over their head as a moment of respect for the institution to which they serve to draw attention to themselves. Would

you just hunch that in a major corporation, perhaps the size of

IBM, that you could bring in a lot of mid-level employees that

would be disgruntled or dissatisfied about the manner in which

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they were being treated by that company? Would you guess that

that might be a possibility?

Mr. SCHAMPERS. I guess so.

Mr. NEAL. See, we bring the bag-on-the-head people in for the

purpose of trying to make a point. My point is that that could be

done across corporate America as well but we don’t undertake that

procedure here. But do you think that there might be some disgruntled employees in major corporations across the country?

Let me ask you something, Mr. Reusing. How much vacation

time do you get?

Mr. REUSING. Twenty-six days per year.

Mr. NEAL. Twenty-six days. Was that bargained?

Mr. REUSING. I really don’t know. I wasn’t involved in the unions

when that came down. I don’t know if that’s an OPM rule, or if it

was bargained or not.

Mr. NEAL. OK. How much sick time do you get?

Mr. REUSING. I get 13 days per year.

Mr. NEAL. Was that bargained?

Mr. REUSING. Again, I don’t have any knowledge one way or the

other.

Mr. NEAL. What about bereavement time?

Mr. REUSING. Again, I would have no knowledge. There are OPM

rules that apply to all Government employees, and I don’t——

Mr. NEAL. OK. Without getting into your specific salary, your

wages, were those bargained?

Mr. REUSING. I don’t believe Government employees are allowed

to bargain their wages. Although I do think that unions do mount

campaigns when that comes before Congress, as they should.

Mr. NEAL. Right. And grievance procedure, was that bargained?

Mr. REUSING. That was bargained.

Mr. NEAL. That was bargained. Do you think that these things

would have been granted by a happy management team without

some suggestion of collective bargaining along the way?

Mr. REUSING. Of course not. However, I also think that abuses

in the unions, if they exist, should be dealt with.

Mr. NEAL. There is no suggestion in this quarter that we ought

to tolerate somebody working at Camden Yards while simultaneously holding a job as a union representative. There is no suggestion about that. The suggestion instead is that many of the procedures that I have outlined here, some of which you have said

were bargained, others you’re not sure about, by and large have

given a decent standard of living to the employees.

Mr. REUSING. That’s correct.

Mr. NEAL. So we’ve acknowledged that management would not

have unilaterally granted these things as just a good wish and an

act of goodwill, so collective bargaining is put in place, people negotiated these agreements, and the expectation is in the end that

both sides live by those agreements. Is that kind of a general understanding?

Mr. REUSING. Yes, and I would also add that the union has a responsibility to consider the views of its members and bring them

forward, whatever those views might be. With the pass/fail rating

system, this was not done. The union maintains that they sent out

a survey. I can tell you for sure that it was not sent out in central

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office because I would have given it out. And when I was fired as

a steward, I was saying at a public meeting, the president of the

union had told the employees that they had received a survey. And

I said, ‘‘No, they didn’t. We never gave one out.’’ And I was dismissed immediately. The employees’ issues and concerns are not always being brought forward by the union or through partnership.

And that needs to be resolved.

Mr. NEAL. No, that’s reasonable that you outlined that problem

and challenge. Let me ask you this if I can: How does the union

president become the union president?

Mr. REUSING. The union president has to be elected.

Mr. NEAL. Elected? Management doesn’t appoint them?

Mr. REUSING. No.

Mr. NEAL. So it would suggest that in some manner there are

employees that are satisfied with the person at the head of the

union?

Mr. REUSING. Well, I’m glad we got to that.

Mr. NEAL. So am I. [Laughter.]

Mr. REUSING. Right now we have put before the Department of

Labor a protest over our last election. One of the reasons I was dismissed as an officer is because I had 126 blank union ballots that

I refused to give over to a high level union official during the election. And this person was a candidate. So I would submit that

union officials that are partners with management should be fairly

elected because they may, that’s to say management may be dealing with people who stole an election. And I’m willing to wait until

the Department of Labor makes a decision on that but there is

some evidence of that.

Chairman BUNNING. The gentleman’s time has expired.

Mr. NEAL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman BUNNING. You’re welcome. Let me just—the reason for

the hearing is that there is a difference between private and public

sector employees to the point of the use of taxpayers’ dollars, and

that is the only reason we’re having the hearing. So disgruntled

employees at IBM don’t spend taxpayers’ dollars in an irrational

way. The reason we’re having the hearings is that we have found

evidence, at least we think we have, of taxpayers’ dollars being

used in a frivolous way.

The gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Hayworth.

Mr. HAYWORTH. I thank the Chairman, and I would concur that

the important distinction is not the fact that—to borrow Mr. Jefferson’s phrase, ‘‘in the course of human events,’’ there may be dissatisfaction and dispute within the workplace. The central feature

we are concerning ourselves with today is alleged abuse—and to

use the term of the Inspector General, ‘‘abuse,’’ of the taxpayer dollars in personnel decisions. And that is the key distinction.

And I would also note for the record that none of the witnesses

today have bags over their heads. No one is trying to run and hide

from what appeared real and disturbing problems.

Mr. Schampers, it was suggested earlier with an unfortunate

term that the ‘‘robust discussion’’ that you found yourself a part of

was akin to a ‘‘man bites dog’’ occurrence in that it was extremely

rare but disputes can happen. Do you feel your personal experience

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is rare? Do you believe it has been replicated? Have you heard of

other situations involving intimidation?

Mr. SCHAMPERS. I’ve heard of several other instances of abusive

or loud language, whether it’s life threatening remarks, I can’t attest to that.

I would so though—I’d like to respond in your question a little

bit to Congressman Neal’s question in that I don’t come here as a

disgruntled employee. I can tell you I’m a very happy Federal employee. I’ve been very successful in this agency. I’m very happy in

the town I live in. You’re not seeing my name on promotion lists

because I don’t intend to leave Waco. I love this job. I love this organization. And it has been good to me, very good to me.

My reasons for coming here today are because I see some problems, not problems with the union, none of us are here today saying we shouldn’t have a union. We’re saying that there should be

some controls in the process. There is a role for unions, but that

role is not without restrictions and that includes robust discussion

and language and standards of conduct. I think anyone who works

for this Government is bound by the standards of conduct and the

standards of decency, and we should acknowledge those and be required to follow them.

Mr. HAYWORTH. Just for the record, what was characterized as

a ‘‘robust discussion’’ by union officials, where someone took their

finger pointing it and putting it into your chest and said that people like you could end up missing—did you consider that robust

discussion or a threat?

Mr. SCHAMPERS. I consider that a life threat from an organization that’s very powerful.

Mr. HAYWORTH. You also offered, I think, very eloquent testimony giving your dedication to your job. You talked about the

farmers in the Waco area and the drought conditions and your ability to put into everyday terms what was going on here. I’d like you

to go back to the testimony. I think it was something about the

FICA taxes of 9,000 farmers over a certain period of time essentially go to pay for union activities. Is that correct? Was that your

statement?

Mr. SCHAMPERS. That’s correct.

Mr. HAYWORTH. And I just want to thank you for pointing that

up because that is the other key portion of the equation here, the

very human equation of American taxpayers and American citizens, who come to rely on Social Security, seeing that money that

is supposed to be in a trust fund ends up sadly in what appears

to be a slush fund. And I just want to thank you for your comment

because I think in that testimony, it’s very compelling because you

bring into human terms what exactly is at stake.

Mr. Reusing, I want to congratulate you not for being a survivor,

but for being one who is willing to say, as you have this morning,

you believe in the collective bargaining process but you’re for the

rights of the individual as well as the right to collectively bargain.

Tell more about the offer of 100 percent official time? Could you

tell me more about that experience?

Mr. REUSING. Well, I and another steward were going to run for

an office on a reform ticket. A high-ranking union official felt that

this would be a threat to his career because he was up for election

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the following year. And he didn’t want that kind of embarrassment.

He asked to see me, though we hadn’t been talking for a while.

And I went down and I was made the offer just as I said. I would

be given 100 percent of official time for the rest of my career. I

would not have to go back to my desk. All I had to do was not run.

Now, I want to point out that there were no additional duties required of this. I just had to not run. I could have been self-employed but still paid by the taxpayer. And that’s clearly an abuse

and I found it insulting.

I would like to say that there are literally hundreds of union representatives who do not abuse their time. And Federal employees

do have restrictions put upon them that you don’t have in the private sector. And that was the reason for the taxpayers’ granting us

official time in the first place. It’s a generous benefit for Federal

employees. And Congress and the President felt it was reasonable,

it was signed into law. My problem is if it’s abused that it could

be taken away and I think that’s a detriment to Social Security employees, Federal employees in general, and because when you have

positive relationships between management and union, as this gentleman said, prior to partnership, I think they provide benefits for

the taxpayers too. I would not like to see misconduct by my colleagues resulting in the loss of official time.

Chairman BUNNING. The gentleman’s time has expired. Mr.

Becerra. Not here.

Mr. Levin.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Chairman, let me ask a few questions that relate

to facts. I don’t think there is any difference in the level of concern

about abuse on this Subcommittee. And I don’t think anybody

should mischaracterize it. Since I hadn’t said anything today, I

know you weren’t characterizing my concerns.

So let me ask a few questions about facts. It is a little difficult

to get them since we don’t have all the parties here. We’re doing

this not just panel by panel, but day by day. But that’s the way

this has been structured. So let me just ask—because I’m concerned about any abuse and I want to get the facts.

Mr. Hardesty, you talk a lot about full-time union officials. I’d

like to understand what the system is. You’re a district manager,

right?

Mr. HARDESTY. Correct.

Mr. LEVIN. You say in your testimony, ‘‘there are no agency restrictions on the number or location of full-time union officials?’’

Mr. HARDESTY. Right.

Mr. LEVIN. So that means in your region there could be 150 fulltime union officials?

Mr. HARDESTY. I guess that potentially could happen. I’m not

sure how many full-time officials we have in our region. We have

three in my office. That’s highly unusual. I’ve worked in, gosh,

eight or so Social Security offices and this is the only office I’ve

ever worked in that had any full-time union officials.

Mr. LEVIN. So you’re sure there’s no regulation, no structure determining how many there will be. So the union could name 200

people. Mr. Schampers, let Mr. Hardesty answer, would you

please?

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Mr. HARDESTY. Yes, there is no—to my knowledge—there’s no

number that is allowed in terms of full-time union officials. There

are some restrictions in terms of bank hours. Bank hours are representational hours that can be used for specific purposes. There

are allocations for bank time that can be delegated to union officials to use. So in theory there would be a possibility if the officials

were using solely bank time, that that time would run out and,

therefore, there could be no other officials. The problem is that the

decision as to whether the time is charged to bank time or to agency time, under our present system is the purview of the person

using the time. They just report it.

Mr. LEVIN. So you’re saying the number of full timers, as some

of you called it, would be governed by the hours that could be

banked for time relating to union or organizational functions?

Mr. HARDESTY. Well, union or organizational functions, internal

union business is not approved official time. It’s neither bank nor

agency time.

Mr. LEVIN. So you’re sure that a union could name 25 people full

time and there would be no restriction on that?

Mr. HARDESTY. Well, I’m not sure of specifically what the union

can do.

Mr. LEVIN. But you say there are no agency restrictions, I think

we better ask the panel that comes here tomorrow. I find that if

there are no restrictions that a union could name 500 people,

there’s a problem.

Let me ask you also, you say, ‘‘For full-time union officials, I

have no controls available to me to ensure their time is being used

appropriately.’’ Under the old or new system, is there any requirement that full timers, as some of you have labeled them, must

enter some information about what they’re doing?

Mr. HARDESTY. They’re to report to us the number of hours that

they spend and whether those hours are agency time or bank time.

And they do give us that report. But in terms of the specifics of

what they’re doing during that time, I have no way of knowing nor

do I have any way to verify when they report it.

Mr. LEVIN. They’re not required to specify anything?

Mr. HARDESTY. They’re not required to—our policy says that in

order for me to approve official time, they’re to tell me enough

about their activity to enable me to make a decision as to whether

it’s appropriate. And that’s the way it historically has worked. And

the way it works today with the stewards that I work with. The

full timers don’t request advanced approval of official time. They

just work it and after the fact.

Mr. LEVIN. They report?

Mr. HARDESTY. They report, ‘‘I worked x number of hours bank

time. I worked x number of hours of agency time.’’

Mr. LEVIN. They don’t have to say what they did?

Mr. HARDESTY. No, that’s our practice.

Chairman BUNNING. The gentleman’s time has expired. The gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Portman.

Mr. PORTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Another very troubling

piece of information there that I didn’t see in the IG’s findings that

there doesn’t have to be any kind of specificity as to what happens

on official time.

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Let me just say that one of the union senior officials was quoted

perhaps inaccurately, but I doubt it, as saying that these hearings

are ‘‘political theater.’’ Having sat through yesterday and sat

through today and heard your testimony and the questions, it’s not

political theater. We’re responding to very serious and a very troubling report from the IG’s office before the GAO of massive lack of

accountability really as to how taxpayer dollars are being spent. I

want to thank all four of you gentleman for being here today. Let

us pursue it.

Let’s just review it quickly though. The IG said that 25 percent

of the managers at SSA do believe that there is abuse of time used

on union activities. And 20 percent of them said they did nothing

about it. And why? Because they felt no one was interested.

That alone, Mr. Bunning, is a reason to have this hearing, and

I thank you for it because we want everyone at SSA to know we

do care. We care about what happens at SSA and we care about

the good workers. And, as was noted earlier today, we’ve just come

through this IRS practice, most of the people at SSA are trying

hard to do a good job, they’re working hard, they’re doing the right

thing. And they’re being tarred with the abuses from the other

workers. We want them to know, the good workers, we’re with

them and that’s why we’re going after this. And I think it’s very

appropriate and not political theater at all, but rather it’s our responsibility.

We also found out from this report that there are obviously very

inadequate controls on all sorts of things including ensuring that

the authorized number of union reps are not exceeded, the amount

of time and so on. I’m very troubled that the union challenged the

legality of the review, and basically advised union officials not to

cooperate. So that’s kind of where we are.

In 1993 GAO did a report, and found there was about $6 million

spent on union activity. In 1996, 3 years later, with only a 1 percent increase in the work force, we have 145 percent increase in

the amount of dollars spent on union activity. And, as was said

earlier, that does not even include some of the cost of union time

because it doesn’t include the cost of union time in partnership activities. So the $14.7 million that 9,000 farmers paid in payroll

taxes is actually a conservative figure. It’s actually more than 9,000

farmers whose payroll taxes went to support union activity. And

my point, again, is that we need to look at this 145 percent increase in 3 years with basically a flat work force. Eighty-one percent increase in the number of full-time union representatives in

3 years. These kind of figures are very disturbing. A 53 percent increase in the hours of Government time used for union activities.

The most disturbing thing I heard today really, Mr. Hardesty,

came from you and that is the fact that, as you said in response

to a question, and in your testimony you get into this, that resources are being taken away from front lines. You talked about

the fact that people were waiting in line. I assume these are senior

citizens who are coming forward to try to figure out something

about their benefit check, trying to get information, who are ending

up waiting in line while full-time SSA employees are doing fulltime union work, and not, therefore, able to deal with those waiting

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lines. Can you get into that a little more and tell us what’s going

on in your office?

Mr. HARDESTY. Well, we have backlogs in many areas. We have,

as you well know, we provide service in a full range of Social Security business, everything from issuing Social Security numbers to

the Supplement Security Income program, and now we’re doing

more re-determinations on that program, continuing disability reviews, retirement survivors disability claims. And those resources

are pinched.

Mr. PORTMAN. So you’ve got backlogs. Do you have waiting rooms

that are full? Do you have phones that aren’t being answered? Do

you have that kind of a problem?

Mr. HARDESTY. Well, we have—yes, we do have those things, but

what we’ve chosen to do is to take our claims representatives, who

normally would spend a good portion of their day in adjudicating

benefits, and we’ve moved them up to the front line. When the

waiting room gets full, we don’t let people wait. We’ll pull someone

off their desk, and we’ll go up there and we’ll take care of the people that are there waiting for us.

Mr. PORTMAN. But at the same time——

Mr. HARDESTY. As a result, if something builds up, they

don’t——

Mr. PORTMAN. Three full-time union folks in your office and you

don’t know what they’re doing and you, frankly, don’t have the

ability to approve or disapprove what they are doing at the time

when you’re having to pull people off other jobs to go onto the line

to respond to questions from seniors?

Mr. HARDESTY. That’s correct.

Mr. PORTMAN. And to answer phones and to help people with

their concerns.

Let me just ask one more question, if I could, of Mr. Reusing.

And I appreciate the courage of all of you coming forward. Mr.

Reusing, as a union officer, I particularly want to cite you. You

mentioned that you have some evidence of people not doing SSA

business or union business while on official time, but instead working at the baseball park or selling real estate and so on. Do you

or any other panelists have any evidence of any union activity,

union officials who would be engaged in political activities while on

official time?

Mr. REUSING. As a steward, I attended training meetings that we

would organize. And stewards from all the locals would attend. And

there would be talk of upcoming elections and initiatives to support

as well as candidates, union dues are spent on political contributions even though a high-ranking official came before this committee in June of 1996 and stated that that wasn’t the case, that we

had a special PAC fund. My local doesn’t have a special PAC fund.

The check that he was talking about came right from our general

bank account. So I’ve seen political activity in the union office, yes.

And those political views might not be the views of our members.

We shouldn’t be involved.

Chairman BUNNING. The gentleman’s time has expired.

Mr. Johnson.

Mr. JOHNSON of Texas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Earlier, Congressman Levin stated that you had limits on the number of people

237

who could work in the union. I think there’s a public law to the

effect that a limitation does exist, but I’m told by the IG that nobody in the agency knows what that limit is, nor do they try to enforce one. Is that true?

Mr. SCHAMPERS. May I answer?

Mr. JOHNSON of Texas. Sure.

Mr. SCHAMPERS. When GAO came to my office when they were

doing their investigation in 1996, the GAO investigator voiced frustration to me saying that they were having trouble finding out how

many people worked in full-time or part-time jobs for the union because no one controlled it, the union or management, no one had

these numbers. And he further told me that no one seems to want

to gather those numbers.

Mr. JOHNSON of Texas. Yes, that’s essentially what they told us

as well. And really that reflects poorly on both the union and management.

Mr. Beckstrom, we have reports that some union members are

working a second job or doing things they probably shouldn’t be

doing under the existing rules. Do you think it’s possible that some

union members in the Baltimore office are working a second job or

outside the purview of the agency on agency time?

Mr. BECKSTROM. Well, you’re asking me to speculate. I know a

couple of union stewards pretty closely. I work with one very closely on the partnership council we have. The guys I know are working very hard and I think they are making a contribution to the

agency.

Mr. JOHNSON of Texas. Do you think the taxpayers are getting

their money’s worth out of the union employees that we’re paying

full time or part time?

Mr. BECKSTROM. The people that I know I think are giving good

service to the workers and the agency.

Mr. JOHNSON of Texas. In your opinion, what’s the benefit to the

taxpayer for the taxpayer dollars given to these union employees

who work full-time union activity and/or part time?

Mr. BECKSTROM. Well, they protect workers. I mean workers are

abused now and then. You know, they’re part of a process that protects them. Also, I think they provide a reality check to the administration. For instance, in our partnership council we did this study

of communication within systems. The Deputy Commissioner for

Systems mandated that there be face-to-face meetings every couple

of weeks with staff people, and the Deputy Commissioner for Systems has no way in the world of knowing that that actually happens. We serve to kind of give them the feedback, with half of the

managers that’s probably not happening. This is a source of information he’s not going to get from any other area.

Mr. JOHNSON of Texas. According to the IG, 25 percent of these

union employees do something outside the agency. Would you like

to speculate what kind of outside work they do? Is it fishing?

Mr. BECKSTROM. I don’t know anybody who’s doing that.

Mr. JOHNSON of Texas. You don’t?

Mr. BECKSTROM. No, I do not.

Mr. JOHNSON of Texas. OK.

You know, helping the seniors is the primary job of the Social Security Administration. There are other duties as well. But, if these

238

union employees can’t be controlled, and the managers can’t get

them to help them when they need help, and are overburdened, do

you think that’s the right result?

Mr. BECKSTROM. It’s disturbing to me that that may be happening. I don’t think the union ends up looking good in workers’ eyes,

if they—I mean, the coworker of these people in these district offices can only resent the union. That’s not a win for the union to

have people get away with that.

Mr. JOHNSON of Texas. Yes. Do you see that in Baltimore at all?

Mr. BECKSTROM. Well, in Systems there’s not a strong presence

of stewards there. You’re asking me to speculate to some degree.

I haven’t seen it. And the people I know are really competent, very

competent people, and responsible.

Mr. JOHNSON of Texas. Mr. Reusing, you want to address that?

You always get caught right at the end of the light.

Mr. REUSING. Are you asking, do they respect the union employees?

Mr. JOHNSON of Texas. Yes.

Mr. REUSING. Last year at a townhall meeting, a Division Director and a union vice president stood before the group, and an employee said to the Division Director, ‘‘You’re here to represent management. She’s here to represent the union. Who is here to represent us?’’ And I think that says it all.

Mr. JOHNSON of Texas. Thank you very much.

Chairman BUNNING. Last but not least, the gentleman from

Georgia, Mr. Collins.

Mr. COLLINS. Thank you, gentlemen. I regret that I missed your

testimony, but I do have a couple of questions.

Mr. Reusing—did I pronounce that right?

Mr. REUSING. Yes.

Mr. COLLINS. OK. You mention that in your testimony, on more

than one occasion, management gets what it wants, and the union

sells out the employees. What is management getting, and what

are the union officials receiving?

Mr. REUSING. Well, let me recite an example that happened last

year, and that might put it in perspective for you.

Last year in ODIO, the Office of Disability and International Operations, management wanted to increase the education requirements on several job postings. These were for low-grade positions,

GS–5, GS–6, GS–7. The incumbents for this job are typically

women and minorities. Many of them haven’t had the benefit of a

college education. Management wanted to not only increase the

number of points, but the criteria for a course, counting for a point.

The previous job postings for these positions had no education requirements. Management was concerned, because under a pass/fail

rating system they couldn’t rank employees. It’s sort of like picking

people for a draft pick on a baseball team, and not having their

stats. So, they wanted a way to screen out some applicants. They

decided that education would be a good way to do it.

This was negotiated originally through the partnership in ODIO,

and then an officer and a steward were selected to negotiate the

final MOU. In that MOU the points were increased, and you needed I think 3 or 5 points for education, just to make the best qualiVerDate 11-SEP-98 16:29 Mar 27, 2000 Jkt 061080 PO 00000 Frm 00241 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 K:\HEARINGS\61080.TXT WAYS3 PsN: WAYS3
239

fied list. Hundreds of employees who normally would have qualified

for this job and had been on the best qualified list, were left off.

The union officer who signed that MOU made that BQ list, and

was selected. The son of a union officer who was on that partnership council was selected. Meanwhile, hundreds of our members

couldn’t even be considered.

I filed an EEO complaint for three of those women, and the taxpayers are going to spend a lot of money to resolve that issue. I

think that’s a prime example of how partnership can work if it’s

not controlled properly.

Mr. JOHNSON of Texas. Do you think that management has given

in to some of these so-called jobs, like maybe allowing jobs in Camden Yards? And I’d really be curious as to what you think someone

at Social Security, is doing at Camden Yards? What kind of activities are they engaged in there? Do you know?

Mr. REUSING. It was reported to me, and it was general knowledge around the local that a person was engaged in employment

there, I believe selling concessions. And like I said, I don’t have any

first hand knowledge of that. I want to stress that that was general

knowledge around the local. I did not observe it myself.

Mr. COLLINS. Do you think those are some of the gratuities that

management has been handing out in order to get concessions from

the union?

Mr. REUSING. No.

Mr. COLLINS. Those union officials?

Mr. REUSING. No, I think that was the case where someone was

just taking advantage of official time, and management wasn’t

aware of it.

Mr. COLLINS. OK. Mr. Beckstrom, you talk very favorably of the

partnership concept, and how it’s working. And I have a company,

one of the major automakers—it’s right at the edge of my district—

called Ford Motor Company, and they have this team aspect to

their union and supervisor. And it’s worked very well there, so, I

know it can work.

And I appreciate your stating that you think everything is doing

very well. You say that you think the IG has overstated their numbers in their review of the activities.

Mr. BECKSTROM. I didn’t say that. I don’t know if—I haven’t seen

the report. I don’t really know—you know, I don’t have enough

knowledge to rebut it.

Mr. COLLINS. I got that out of your testimony.

Is your opinion before IG or after IG, that the partnership is

working better?

Mr. BECKSTROM. I guess when—reading my opening statement,

I was saying I think that Systems works more effectively now that

we have a partnership, yes.

Mr. COLLINS. And this is after the IG report, really?

Mr. BECKSTROM. Irrelevant in the IG report.

Mr. COLLINS. It—the report. Mr. Schampers says that it was understated. Were all of these people sworn in? You still stand by

each of your testimonies. One says one thing, and one says—of

course, that really what happens in everything we do anyway.

Chairman BUNNING. Yes, they were all sworn in.

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Mr. COLLINS. They were all sworn in. Either one of you want to

change that position?

Mr. BECKSTROM. You know, I don’t know what the numbers in

OIG, if they’re accurate or not. I mean, I don’t have any opinion.

Mr. COLLINS. No opinion.

Mr. BECKSTROM. I don’t have anything to base it on, no, sir.

Mr. COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. NEAL. Mr. Chairman, could I seek a point of clarification?

Chairman BUNNING. Go right ahead.

Mr. NEAL. Mr. Collins, in your questioning of Mr. Reusing, you

asked him whether or not that employee at Camden Yards was an

established fact, and what did he say? That’s hearsay? Is that what

he said? That it was a rumor?

Mr. COLLINS. Yes. He said it was based on things that had been

told to him.

Mr. NEAL. Told to him. OK. For some reason, I thought that that

was an established fact, and that we had repeated enough so that

we all assumed it to be true. And now Mr. Reusing is saying—did

you hear that?

Mr. COLLINS. Well, I also asked him what he was doing, and he

said he’d heard he’d been working in a concession stand.

My point, Richard, was to see if whether or not——

Mr. NEAL. But, that doesn’t make it more authentic.

Mr. COLLINS [continuing]. This had been some type of a gratuity,

some type of favor that was offered or given by management to a

union official for some agreement.

Mr. NEAL. We should try to establish that better—that’s my only

point—before we pass that off as being——

Mr. COLLINS. Well, when you have your 5 minutes, you establish

it how you want to.

Mr. NEAL. Yes. Well, I thank the gentleman for clarifying that.

I mean, it’s important.

Chairman BUNNING. The gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Weller.

Mr. WELLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I apologize in my

delay in getting here, and that I missed the testimony of your four

witnesses. But, just in working to keep things in perspective here,

last night after the hearing we had yesterday, I was talking with

some folks back home, kind of what I call the coffee shop crowd,

the retirees that you see at 10:00 at White’s Cafe, having coffee,

who tend to assimilate all the information, and of course make recommendations, and pass judgment on what we’re doing here in

Washington.

And I come here today, of course, as a supporter of collective bargaining, and when I think of some of the things I’ve learned, and

looking at the Inspector General’s report, and of course the information that came out yesterday, I recognize we’re looking at management decisions by the administration, as well as the actions of

public employees, and the Social Security Administration.

You think about it, employees of the Social Security Administration are charged with safeguarding the Social Security Trust Fund,

something that’s pretty important to folks like mom and dad, seniors that are on Social Security. And if you relate that to my

friends that are prison guards at Stateville in Joliet in my district,

they’re charged with keeping criminals off the street.

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And yesterday, of course, we learned in the hearing about what

officially is known as official time, and what I call taxpayer time,

where individuals are using time at taxpayer expense for other

purposes. And I shared it with these guys at the coffee table back

home, the story about the Social Security Administration employee

in Boston—the story that the Inspector General discovered regarding the Social Security employees going Christmas shopping on taxpayer time. We’d all love to have that privilege. Wasn’t that wonderful. And the fact that it’s still continuing outraged these folks

back home.

Today of course, we have been talking about an employee who

has allegedly been—or at least one employee who has been working

on taxpayer time, who allegedly was working at Camden Yards. Of

course, I’m a Cubs and Sox fan in Chicago. I know Camden Yards

is the home to the Baltimore Orioles.

But, let me ask Mr. Reusing, you’ve indicated you felt this individual was working in a concession stand. Is he a hot dog vendor,

or is he the bat boy, is he selling hats, or pennants?

Mr. REUSING. My understanding was that it was in concession

stands. But again, I don’t have a real detailed knowledge on that.

And as this gentleman said, it may be considered hearsay, but it’s

clearly stated in my statement that it’s what I heard.

Mr. WELLER. It’s your belief then that this individual was selling

hot dogs or something on taxpayer time, essentially two-timing the

taxpayers at taxpayer expense?

Mr. REUSING. That’s essentially correct.

Mr. WELLER. Let me ask Mr. Beckstrom, with the statement that

Mr. Reusing, who’s, from what I recognize here, a union official

looking out for the interest of the employees at Camden Yards, do

you confirm that it’s possible that this individual could have been

selling hot dogs on taxpayer time at Camden Yards, while he

should have been over at the Social Security Administration Office,

protecting the Social Security Trust Fund dollars for people like my

mom and dad, seniors and citizens?

Mr. BECKSTROM. Well, I know my mom doesn’t want him down

there either, but I—it’s such a wild story, I find it hard to believe.

I mean, first off, selling hot dogs as a perk.

Mr. WELLER. Yes, but the question is, Mr. Beckstrom, this person

was doing it at taxpayer expense. He’s collecting a paycheck that

my hard-working folks in the south suburbs of Chicago work hard

to pay taxes, send them to Washington, DC. This guy’s collecting

a taxpayer financed check, and then he’s out selling hot dogs while

he’s collecting that.

And from what you’re telling me, you’ve never investigated this?

The management has never investigated this, even though this is

a story that’s going around——

Mr. BECKSTROM. I’ve never heard it before.

Mr. WELLER [continuing]. And Mr. Reusing has basically said it

must be true?

Mr. BECKSTROM. I never heard this allegation before.

Chairman BUNNING. Let me get in here——

Mr. WELLER. Let me just close, Mr. Chairman. I realize I’m short

of time.

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Chairman BUNNING. You can close it. I’ll let you have more if you

choose.

Mr. WELLER. I just want to ask——

Chairman BUNNING. It’s privilege of the Chair to have evidence

of misdeeds and working outside of the union; you should immediately take it to the Inspector General. That’s the function within

your organization to do that. Now, go right ahead.

Mr. WELLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, that’s a good point. And

that’s why I wonder why it was never looked into. I mean, do they

just put blinders on in this office, in Baltimore?

Mr. Beckstrom, I guess what I’m really asking you, are you saying it’s impossible that this individual could have been selling hot

dogs at Camden Yards on taxpayer time?

Mr. BECKSTROM. I’m not saying it’s impossible, no.

Mr. WELLER. Do you believe that this should have been investigated by the management at the Social Security Office in Baltimore?

Mr. BECKSTROM. I would think management and the union

would want to know about it.

Mr. WELLER. Mr. Chairman, I just can’t understand, if the Inspector General has come forward with what some say might be

hearsay, and others say it’s pretty factual, and even a union official

states that it’s pretty common knowledge that someone was working at taxpayer expense, selling hot dogs at baseball games on taxpayer expense, I just don’t understand why the Social Security Administration didn’t look into this and put a stop to it. Thank you,

Mr. Chairman.

Mr. NEAL. Will the gentleman yield for a question?

Mr. WELLER. Happy to.

Mr. NEAL. Who said it was factual?

Mr. WELLER. Well, my good friend—and I’m happy to yield to

you. In my line of questioning here, I think Mr. Reusing said he

believed this was going on. Mr. Beckstrom stated that it’s not impossible that it could have. The Inspector General identified this as

a problem. And the question is, why was it not investigated.

Mr. NEAL. But my point is, who said it was factual? Which one

of the panelists said it was factual?

Mr. WELLER. I believe Mr. Reusing said he believed that this occurred, correct? And Mr. Beckstrom said it’s not impossible that it

could have happened.

The question I have is, why did not the administrators of Social

Security Administration look into this, investigate it, and put a

stop to it? That’s the question.

Mr. NEAL. I agree with the latter part of your assertion. I don’t

agree with the former, that somebody stated it was factual.

Chairman BUNNING. The gentleman’s time has expired. That’s a

way to get out from under a mess.

I would like to just give my good friend from Boston a little information on his supposed problem with Christmas shopping. It was

brought to the attention of management, and management was

going to stop it. But, the union filed a grievance, and therefore

management got out from under the problem by allowing it to continue. That’s the facts on the Christmas shopping problem in Boston. And it’s only for this year, continues for this last year.

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Mr. NEAL. Well, I’m proud to say, Mr. Chairman, I’m 90 miles

west of Boston, and it does not occur in Springfield.

Chairman BUNNING. OK. Does anybody else have any other questions?

Often it is impossible for our Subcommittee to cover everything,

all the issues that we’re interested in during a hearing; therefore,

we may be submitting additional questions in writing for you to answer for the record.

Again, I want to thank you sincerely, each of you, for being here

for our hearing. Your stewardship of the program and dedication

to improving the agency is deeply appreciated by the Members of

this Subcommittee and this Congress. The Subcommittee is adjourned.

[Questions submitted by Chairman Bunning and their respective

answers provided by Mr. Hardesty, follow:]

1. You said that you had three individuals who work full time as union officials.

How many total employees are in your office? How did you acquire each of your 3

union officials?

We have a total of 62 staff members in our office. This figure includes our 3 union

officials. One of our union officials transferred to our office from an office in another

region. He worked for several years as a Claims Representative and eventually

began spending approximately 50% of his time on official time. He was later named

an Administrative Officer by the Regional Vice President and notified local management that he would be using 100% official time for an indefinite period. He was

later elected to the Regional Vice President position and continued to use 100% official time. He recently lost the election for Regional Vice President, but was immediately appointed by the local president a Chief Steward and given 100% official

time. The National President has also given assignments to this person. He also

serves as a National Council Representative. Another of our union officials was

working as a Claims Representative Trainee when he was named by the Regional

Vice President as a ‘‘Presidential Designee’’ and given 100% official time. He was

later elected to the position of President of the local and has continued to use 100%

official time. Our third full-time official was using 100% official time in another region and came to our office on a hardship transfer.

You mention that one was a hardship transfer case...how did that work?

Our agency has a memorandum of understanding with the union that covers

hardship transfers. A person who feels that they meet the criteria for a hardship

transfer must submit a request to the appropriate management official. Relocation

expenses are not authorized for employees who receive hardship transfers. The management official considers the employee’s situation and the needs of the receiving

office. If a decision is made to offer the transfer, the request is referred to a designated union official who can either approve of deny the hardship request. If the

union approves the hardship, the transfer can be effectuated. In the case of the

transfer to Tulsa of the union official, we attempted to apply the same criteria as

we apply to other staff members. A decision was made to honor the request. Since

the person would not be doing direct public service work, however, we did not consider our staffing pattern or the specific workload needs of our office. The transfer

was requested because the person had married the full-time union representative

in the Muskogee office. The union official transferred to our office and subsequently

filed a grievance, citing unfair treatment and demanding reimbursement of relocation expenses.

2. You mention that the pursuance of abuse of official time allegations by full-time

union representatives is virtually non-existent in your experience. Why?

Article 30, Section 3 of our bargaining agreement in entitled ‘‘Allegations of

Abuse.’’ The entire section reads as follows: ‘‘Alleged abuses of official time shall be

brought to the attention of an appropriate management official on a timely basis

by supervisors and management officials. The management official will then discuss

the matter with the local or council president as appropriate.’’ Supervisors need to

receive sufficient general information to assure the activity is one for which official

time is authorized, but union officials are not required to discuss the substance of

their activity. The burden falls on the union to police itself in allegations of abuse

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of official time. Our labor relations staffs can request copies of SSA–75’s to insure

that the official time was authorized, but, since specific details of the activities are

not provided, it is difficult to pursue allegations of abuse. The definition of abuse

is very nebulous. All of us at SSA are interested in having a strong, independent,

yet accountable union. No one wants to see abuses of official time. The balance between independence for union officials and management oversight is a delicate one.

Our present system creates a challenge in addressing allegations of abuse, since

union officials are not required to provide details about the nature of their activities

while on official time. If a union representative has a SSA–75 that has been approved, and the person is on duty, it is virtually impossible to prove that the person

is actually engaged in the activity that is being reported.

3. You discuss the approval process for official time in your testimony quite clearly,

yet you say full-time union officials operate by a different standard. How and why

does this process work differently for them?

It is important for us to schedule official time around public service activities for

union officials who maintain agency workloads. Since many full-time union officials

have not done direct public service work for years, different practices have evolved

concerning the approval of their official time. The SSA–75 form that is used for the

approval of official time does not call for the exact nature of the union activity. It

simply asks the union official to designate broad categories of time, such as bank

time, mid-term bargaining, etc. For example, if the union official requests time for

mid-term bargaining there is no place on the form that requires to person requesting the time to identify the issue to be bargained or the management official with

whom the person is bargaining. The union official, therefore, cannot be required to

provide additional information to justify the use of official time. Past practices have

evolved under which union officials who use 100% official time simply turn in the

SSA–75 after the fact to report how they spent their time. Other union officials have

their SSA–75’s approved in advance. The procedure for ‘‘after the fact’’ approval of

SSA–75’s for full time officials is based on past practices and a Memorandum of Understanding that was signed in 1990. I have recently asked out full-time officials

to provide to me an interim SSA–75 in advance, which estimates how their time

will be spend, followed by a final SSA–75 after the time has been used.

4. In SSA’s response to the IG report, the Commissioner says, ‘‘the new automated

Official Union Time Tracking System (OUTTS), will eliminate the errors that the IG

identified in the Agency’s manual reporting system. What are your experiences with

this tracking system? Do you believe that it will eliminate the IG identified errors?

OUTTS does not change the approval process for official time. It does not enable

agency management to verify that the activity for which official time was approved

was indeed the activity that was performed on official time. It does, however, do two

key things: It allows us to track the use of official time by individual union official,

and it provides a vehicle by which we can track bank time balances for each union

official. The information is instantly available through our mainframe computer system. In this way it does represent an improvement. The information contained in

OUTTS, however, is only as accurate as the SSA–75 that serves as the source document.

The Commissioner also mentioned in his response to the IG report additional actions that SSA has taken to improve the accuracy of official time reporting, which

include releasing an 8-page question/answer guidance on official time, establishing

a new official time reporting system for union officers, and numerous conference

calls and meeting presentations on the importance of accurate reporting. Are you

aware of these initiatives? Have they helped?

I am aware of these initiatives. The agency has taken extraordinary steps to improve the accuracy of official time reporting. The initiatives have been helpful. The

problem, however, is extremely complex and is driven by numerous past practices,

memoranda of understanding, and third party decisions. In order to change those

things they must be re-negotiated. There are, therefore, situations to which some

of the new instructions and guidance cannot be unilaterally applied. It is not because the agency leadership is not seeking to provide guidance; nor is it because

local management does not understand or is ignoring the directives. We have simply

found ourselves in a highly complex situation that has systemic problems that can

only be solved through bargaining or legislation. We can issue instructions, hold

meetings, and point the finger of blame at various individuals. Until we change our

upstream process through the aforementioned methods, however, we will remain

frustrated in our attempts to solve all of our problems.

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5. Even though the SSA Inspector General has told us that they could not verify the

cost of, and hours dedicated to, union activities, since SSA’s information was not reliable, SSA did report in 1997, that expenditures for union activities went down from

$14.7 million to $12.4 million and from 482,000 hours to 390,844 hours. They report

that this decrease is due to reduced formal bargaining, a decrease in full-time representatives, and a continued emphasis on Partnership activities. What do you think

about these numbers? Do you think these numbers and SSA’s suggested reasons for

their decline are accurate?

I have no personal knowledge as to the accuracy of those agency-wide numbers.

I do, however, know that the source of most local grievances was our old five level

performance appraisal system. Grievances and the related cost and union/management time virtually disappeared when we went to a pass-fail system. I strongly support the pass-fail system. We can hold staff members accountable for performance,

give feedback on performance, provide coaching, mentoring, and insure that people

do the jobs they were hired to do without the tremendous cost and unmeasurable

losses that a multi-level numeric appraisal system brings.

6. In your experience, how does the Union ensure that it is accurately representing

employee’s views before management?

I cannot speak to an issue that is involves internal union processes and policies.

The union is the exclusive representative of all of the employees in the bargaining

unit regardless of whether or not the views of the employees are represented. I have

had numerous complaints from employees that the union was not accurately representing their views. I consider that problem, however, to be internal union business. I cannot and should not involve myself in internal union business.

7. Who is the union accountable to?

All public servants are ultimately accountable to the taxpayers. Those of us who

do direct public service work must directly account for our actions to our immediate

supervisors. While union officials are not directly accountable to agency management for their actions and the performance, of their duties, they remain public employees and are responsible for adhering to our standards of conduct and must be

accountable to the taxpayers.

8. What benefits do taxpayers derive from official time?

It is impossible for me to delineate specific, measurable benefits from ‘‘official

time.’’ Taxpayers derive benefits from the service that public servants provide directly to them. Time spent in improving and innovating processes and in collaborating to improve working conditions represents a sound investment of tax dollars. I

cannot say that those value-added activities can be attributed to the use of official

time. Neither can I say that all official time adds no value to the taxpayer. My experience, however, does support the notion that collaboration and collective bargaining

based in interest, rather than position, by parties who share a common aim adds

value to the product that we deliver to the taxpayers.

9. What benefits do taxpayers derive from Partnership?

Taxpayers derive immeasurable benefits from collaboration and process improvement. Our formal Partnerships in SSA are still in their infancy. The cost of our formal Partnership time is only beginning to be measured. It is difficult to do a clean

cost-benefit analysis and attribute specific results entirely to Partnership when

there is so much complexity and so many common causes in our processes that effect results. Our Partnership Councils have accomplished numerous things. We cannot, however, say with certainty that none of those things would have been accomplished without the Partnership Councils. Nor can we say that we could have accomplished all that we have without the Partnership Councils. We will have to give

the concept sufficient time to become part of our organizational culture and allow

sufficient time for long-term studies to compare our pre and post Partnership results.

10. We understand that in recent years, there has been a gradual consolidation of

locals into larger area locals. These consolidated locals consist of 10 to 20 offices or

more with appointed Presidents. What impact has this had on relationships with the

union in the field?

In many cases the impact has been minimal. Local managers and supervisors

have continued to deal primarily with local stewards. In some cases the President

of the local, rather than the local steward, might choose to interface with the local

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management staff. In these cases there is a likelihood that the President might not

be as attuned to the specific needs of the local staff members as the local steward.

the call of the Chair.]

[Whereupon, at 11:45 a.m., the hearing was adjourned, subject to

f

(247)

LABOR-MANAGEMENT RELATIONS AT THE

SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION

FRIDAY, JULY 24, 1998

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS, SUBCOMMITTEE ON SOCIAL SECURITY, Washington, DC.

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:04 a.m., in

room 1100, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Jim Bunning

(Chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding.

Chairman BUNNING. The Subcommittee will come to order. If our

guests would please take their seats, we’d appreciate that.

Good morning. I began this hearing on Wednesday by saying

that Social Security is a sacred trust between the American people

and their Government. When evidence of abuse is discovered, it is

our duty to pursue it, and it is our duty to resolve it. All of us are

in this together—Democrats, Republicans, the administration, and

the unions. We all must root out any abuse that harms our Nation’s seniors and their ability to receive service from the Social Security Administration.

Having listened to the testimony this week, I am deeply troubled

by what I have heard. Christmas shopping time is paid for by taxpayers. Workers are engaged in private business enterprises, personal endeavors, and political activities while on taxpayer-financed

union time. Intimidation by union officials occurs, and even worse,

management tells the workers to drop it. Full-time union officials

are missing in action with no one knowing what these workers are

doing while they are on official time.

I am convinced this is not anecdotal. The Inspector General confirmed that, when it comes to official time, about 25 percent of SSA

managers suspect abuse. There’s plenty of fire below the smoke,

and we must find ways to put it out. We must proceed. We must

help our dedicated Social Security workers, and we must respect

the rights of organized labor, but we must never look the other way

because we don’t like what we’ve found.

In the interest of time, it is our practice to dispense with opening

statements except from the Ranking Democratic Member. All Members are welcome to submit statements for the record. I yield to

Congresswoman Kennelly for any statement she wishes to make.

Mrs. KENNELLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We’ve had 2 days of

hearings that have included testimony from the SSA Inspector

General and several SSA employees. These hearings have focused

on employee-management relations and the use of official time at

the Social Security Administration. Due to the structure of these

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hearings, we did not have a usual balanced panel where within the

same time frame questions could be answered. We have had, on the

record now, allegations and suspicions. My hope is today that we

would have the opportunity to answer the allegations and to address the suspicions.

However, I think it’s only fair to say that today, 48 hours after

the Inspector General testified, we will finally have the opportunity

to hear from the Social Security Administration and the American

Federation of Government Employees, an employee union representing 52,000 SSA workers who work very, very hard and probably don’t even have any understanding or idea of some of things

that we are talking about, and so I hope we can address these situations in a fair hearing today.

I expect today’s witnesses will offer us their views on the state

of employee-management relations at the SSA and the value of the

partnership agreement in improving those relations.

Two days ago, I asked the Inspector General what system he

would put in place at SSA if he were the Social Security Commissioner in order to resolve concerns raised in his own report. He responded that he would institute the same system that SSA has instituted with only a few minor modifications. I am greatly encouraged by the effort the SSA has made to modernize its official time

tracking system. I hope to hear more today about the capabilities

of the OUTTS system and its expected impact on preventing abuses

and improving controls on official time. I look forward to hearing

about these developments.

Allegations, as I said, were made yesterday by two local office

managers and union officials about the use of official time. We believe that any allegations of abuse ought to be looked into by the

Commissioner and any actual abuses identified and corrected. We

want to make sure that all rules are being properly followed. I hope

the Deputy Commissioner can tell us what steps SSA has taken to

address the concerns raised at yesterday’s hearing.

While the value of labor management partnerships have been

recognized for years in the private sector, in 1993, the Clinton administration had the vision to see how partnerships could improve

the quality of service provided by Government agencies to the public. We are here today to review the accomplishments of partnerships; to seek ways to improve those partnerships, and to find ways

to further stress the SSA’s ability to serve the American people.

I look forward to hearing from today’s witnesses and hope that

we can set the facts straight. Thank you very much.

Chairman BUNNING. Thank you, Congresswoman Kennelly.

Paul Barnes, Deputy Commissioner of Human Resources at the

Social Security Administration in Baltimore, is our first panel.

So if you will rise, Mr. Barnes. I will swear you in. Please, raise

your right hand.

[Witness sworn.]

You may proceed with your statement.

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STATEMENT OF PAUL D. BARNES, DEPUTY COMMISSIONER

FOR HUMAN RESOURCES, SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION

Mr. BARNES. Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee,

I wish to thank the Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee

for inviting me to discuss the issue of union activities and our partnership activities between Social Security and the union which represents its employees, that make significant contributions to enhancements that we have made in customer service. I will summarize my remarks and ask that my written statement be placed in

the record.

Chairman BUNNING. Without objection.

Mr. BARNES. Thank you. One of SSA’s three fundamental goals

set forth in our agency’s strategic plan is to create an environment

that ensures a highly skilled, motivated work force dedicated to

meeting the challenges of SSA’s public service mission. We look to

our partnership with the union as an important means for advancing that goal. By working with the unions we involve our employees in discussions about things that need to be done and how we

will do them.

At SSA, official time has traditionally been litigious, adversarial,

and costly, because much of the matters, such as arbitration and

unfair labor practices, are costly in terms of dollars and agency

time. Under our partnership agreement, our relationship with the

union has shifted away from litigation to more joint activities, such

as involving union representatives in the decisionmaking process to

help craft solutions to better serve our customers and creating

labor management partnership councils and committees at the national and local levels of SSA including health and safety and security committees. The shift has made SSA a better agency and a

much better provider of services to the American public.

Earlier this year, SSA was the first Federal agency at the national level to complete a thorough evaluation of partnerships. This

evaluation details numerous benefits of partnership within SSA.

For example, in the area of customer service, partnership has facilitated numerous improvements in customer service, several of

which directly impact upon our 800 number services. Partnership

also helps SSA customer service initiatives, such as the one-stopshopping initiative we’re pursuing.

In the area of productivity and efficiency, partnership facilitated

the disability redesign process, work sharing from one component

to another and efforts to reduce the backlog in the Office of Hearings and Appeals. The partnership also was involved in developing

and implementing recommendations that improve SSA’s use of

management information.

In the area of employee empowerment, the partnership replaced

traditional management control processes with processes involving

the direct participation of employees, involving them as key stakeholders in workplace issues which affect them profoundly.

In the area of work life, partnership has been found to enhance

the work environment by helping to create developmental and

growth opportunities for employees which had not previously existed. The Benefit Authorizer Intern Program in Kansas City is

250

just one example of job growth, opportunities, and hope for career

advancement.

In the fiscal area, partnership activities have helped SSA save

money and avoid expenditures as compared to traditional labormanagement processes. Significant savings have resulted from reduced litigation costs; reduced relocation and renovation costs; remissioning of employees; and the upgrade of our computer systems

including the installation of Intelligent Work Station/Local Area

Network equipment.

I would also like to discuss the three reports recently issued by

the Office of the Inspector General relating to labor-management

issues at SSA. SSA respects the OIG’s views expressed in the report, but, quite frankly, I believe that many of the conclusions

drawn by the OIG in these reports reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of partnership and the relationship of activities arising out of partnership to the business of SSA.

In its report on official time, the OIG attempted to determine

whether official time used by the SSA was in compliance with laws,

regulations, and collective bargaining agreements, and whether

SSA produces reliable information to determine the costs of official

time. However, the report failed to take into account what we’re

currently doing. The report took into account only SSA’s past manual official time collection system without recognizing new automated systems which will eliminate the errors the IG identified in

its report. SSA has been proactive in ensuring that it captures official time as well as partnership time in an accurate and timely

manner.

The OIG report on Council 220 Union Representative and manager observation on the Use and Management of Official Time at

SSA is a collection of observations and is not, itself, an audit report. The survey represents an unscientific sample of opinions and

perceptions and interpretations of survey data with no supporting

evidence to verify any information given in the responses. Thus,

the survey can only be of limited value in actually assessing the

effectiveness of official time management at SSA.

I would like to point out that the Commissioner reported to the

House Committee on Appropriations on January 27, 1998 that in

fiscal year 1997 there was a 19 percent decrease in the number of

hours of official time that employees spent on union activities as

compared to fiscal year 1996. The decrease is attributable in part

to our continuing emphasis on partnership activities that have

been instrumental in reducing official time usage by $2.3 million

in 1997 as compared to the figure in 1996.

Moreover, the Social Security Trust Fund shall be reimbursed

from general tax revenues for any expenditures made for official

time and for facilities and support services for labor organizations.

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, let me summarize by saying that

partnership activities at SSA greatly contributed to many of our

successes in enhancing customer service. Although our partnership

is still maturing, we expect further progress in the future. The

partnership efforts between labor and management have been

nothing less than a true success story at SSA. We believe that

many of the OIG conclusions reflect, again, the fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of partnership and the activities that

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arise from it as it relates to the business of SSA. I will be happy

to answer any questions that you may have.

[The prepared statement follows:]

Statement of Paul D. Barnes, Deputy Commissioner for Human Resources,

Social Security Administration

I wish to thank the Chairman and the members of the Subcommittee for inviting

me to discuss the issue of union activities and the conduct of union business on official time at the Social Security Administration (SSA).

Since President Clinton issued Executive Order 12871 on October 1, 1993, a new

spirit of cooperation has emerged between SSA and its union partners that has

brought real gains for this Agency and for the millions of Americans that we serve

every day. Although our relationship is still maturing, partnership efforts between

labor and management have had a very positive impact on our ability to serve the

American public.

Today I would like to discuss SSA’s efforts in forging effective relationships with

its union partners; how partnership activities have made significant contributions

to many of the successes we have achieved in enhancing customer service; and why

SSA believes that many of the conclusions drawn by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) in its recent three reports reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of the

nature of partnership and the relationship of activities arising out of partnership

to the business of SSA.

HISTORY OF OFFICIAL TIME AND PARTNERSHIP

In 1962, President Kennedy issued an executive order that established a framework for Federal agencies to bargain with unions over working conditions and personnel practices. This executive order, along with a series of subsequent executive

orders, was codified in the Civil Service Reform Act (CSRA) of 1978, which established official time as an integral part of Federal labor-management relations and

the Federal sector collective bargaining process.

During the Reagan Administration, the first consolidated SSA-AFGE collective

bargaining agreement to recognize agency payment of official union time from both

the trust funds and general revenues was signed by then-SSA Commissioner John

A. Svahn on June 11, 1982.

SSA employees who serve as representatives of the unions use what is referred

to as ‘‘official time’’ when performing union representational activities. Under the

law governing union activities, the Labor-Management Relations Statute, (which

was part of the CSRA), official time is defined as time employees spend acting as

union representatives which they would otherwise spend in duty status and for

which an agency pays the employees as if they were performing their normal duties.

Official time granted to union representatives to engage in activities on behalf of

the union is deemed to be Agency work. SSA, like other Federal agencies and many

firms in the private sector such as Ford, Chrysler, Inland Steel and Armco Steel,

pays for approved time spent by its employees on official time.

The costs associated with union activities and the use of official time are an administrative expense charged to the Agency. In accordance with Public Law 105–

78, the trust funds are reimbursed from general tax revenues for any expenditures

made for official time and for facilities and support services for labor organizations.

TRACKING OFFICIAL TIME USAGE

Tracking the use of official time is important to both SSA management and the

unions. SSA recognizes past problems in accurately tracking and managing official

time and has taken decisive steps to improve the tracking of official time usage.

SSA has continually worked with its components and regions to collect accurate

up-to-date listings of union representatives on a quarterly basis. These lists also

show the percentage of official time used by each person.

We work diligently to ensure that the lists accurately reflect union representatives and the amounts of time used. The Office of Labor-Management and Employer

Relations (OLMER) is responsible for maintaining a list and for making changes

based on information provided by the unions or reported by labor relations staff in

the regions.

In addition, in February 1998, SSA implemented the new automated Official

Union Time Tracking System (OUTTS). OUTTS is an automated system that tracks

use of official time and official bank time balances at the union representative level.

It will enable SSA to monitor time spent on union activities by individual union representatives and ensure that total time spent on certain activities is not excessive.

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Users will be able to query the system for account balances and will be able to

reallocate hours among representatives. The system will alert users when certain

preset conditions arise; e.g., when a union representative is within 20 percent of exhausting his or her allocation of official time. OUTTS will also identify active and

inactive union representatives.

In future releases, OUTTS will enable SSA to make customized queries from the

system. For example, an upcoming release will enable SSA to conduct an internal

check on official time recording activities by differentiating between non-reporting

field offices and reporting field offices. In a different OUTTS release to follow, a

menu of administrative reports will be available. This menu will allow users to limit

reports to specified regions or union locals.

The OUTTS system applies only to the tracking of official time of union representatives in SSA’s field components. This covers 75 percent of the union representatives in the Agency. For components other than field offices, SSA is considering alternative methods for ensuring accurate reporting. For example, a recent automation effort undertaken by OLMER has provided the capability for summarizing official time information on spreadsheets. Once finalized, this process should prevent

duplication and minimize mathematical errors.

HANDLING REQUESTS FOR OFFICIAL TIME

The Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute provides that any employee representing a labor organization ‘‘shall’’ be granted official time for negotiation of a collective bargaining agreement, including any impasse proceedings. The

statute also provides that, except for certain specifically restricted activities, official

time must be granted in any amount the union and management agree to be necessary, reasonable, and in the public interest. However, managers can, and do, request postponement of the use of official time due to workload considerations.

The case law establishes the fundamental criteria for management and labor in

substantiating requests for official time. SSA is in full compliance with both the

statute and case law.

The law does prohibit the granting of official time for union activities involving

internal union business, such as soliciting membership, conducting elections of

union officials, and collecting dues. Thus, SSA does not pay for union expenses related to these activities.

In addition, SSA and the unions have negotiated collective bargaining agreements

which set guidelines for the amount of official time allowable for management-initiated and union-initiated activities. Union officials and SSA must agree on the

amount of official time and the number of union representatives which are allowed

for labor-management relations. These agreements are accomplished through mutual agreement or negotiations. If the parties disagree, the matter may ultimately

be resolved by third parties such as arbitrators, the Federal Service Impasse panel

(FSIP), the FLRA, or the courts. Thus, either the parties mutually agree on the

number of full-time representatives or a third party will make the final decision.

In fact, many issues such as the amount of official time a union representative may

use, the number of full-time union representatives, and access to agency facilities

have often been decided by third parties.

Yet at the same time, as the Commissioner reported to the House Committee on

Appropriations on January 27, 1998, in FY 1997 there was a 19 percent decrease

in the number of hours of official time that employees spent on union activities as

compared with FY 1996. This decrease in reported official time hours is attributable

to several factors, including reduced formal bargaining in some components, a decrease in the number of full-time representatives, and a continuing emphasis on

partnership activities that have been instrumental in reducing official time usage

by $2.3 million.

IMPORTANCE OF PARTNERSHIP AT SSA

Let me now discuss the importance of the partnership between SSA and the

unions which represent its employees. One of SSA’s three fundamental goals set

forth in our Agency Strategic Plan is to create an environment that ensures a highly

skilled, motivated workforce dedicated to meeting the challenges of SSA’s public

service mission. We look on our partnership with the unions as an important means

of advancing that goal. By working with the unions, we involve our employees in

discussions about things that need to be done and how we will do them.

The national performance review (NPR) recommended the formation of ‘‘labormanagement partnerships for success’’ across government. In October 1993, President Clinton issued Executive Order 12871, which created the national partnership

Council, a team of senior union, management, and neutral leaders in support of the

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NPR’s goal of encouraging labor-management cooperation and partnership throughout the federal government. SSA and the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which represents about 50,000 SSA employees, signed an agreement on June 21, 1994, for the purpose of implementing and maintaining such a

cooperative working relationship between labor and management in order to identify and solve problems, and to improve the day-to-day operations of SSA, especially

those affecting service to the public. In this respect, it is in SSA’s best interest to

support the union’s continued participation by funding certain activities, since the

ultimate success of our efforts to improve our operations rests with the employees

who put them into practice every business day.

In the past, official time has traditionally been used in litigious, adversarial, costly third party matters such as arbitrations, and unfair labor practice complaints.

Under our partnership agreement, our relationship with the union has shifted away

from litigation to more joint activities, such as involving union representatives in

the decision making process to help craft solutions to better serve our customers and

creating labor-management partnership councils and committees at the national and

local levels of SSA, including health and safety and security committees. This shift

has made SSA a better agency and a better provider of services to the American

public.

To address SSA issues at the national level, SSA formed its own National Partnership Council which meets on the first Tuesday of each month. Also, Partnership

Councils have been formed by many components at the Deputy Commissioner level

in SSA’s Central Office and in many of SSA’s Regional Offices.

The Partnership Councils charter workgroups and committees to handle special

projects or long term initiatives. Since the implementation of the partnership agreement, SSA management and the union have participated in over 1,537 partnership

projects at the national, regional, and local levels. These partnership projects have

been used for a variety of purposes, primarily involving customer service initiatives

and operational efficiencies, labor-management relations, and quality of work life.

Earlier this year SSA was the first Federal agency to conduct and complete a

thorough evaluation of partnership at the national level. This evaluation detailed

numerous benefits of partnership within SSA. For example:

In the area of customer service, partnership has facilitated numerous improvements in customer service, several of which directly impact upon the 800-number

services. Partnership also helped to facilitate SSA’s customer service improvement

initiatives such as ‘‘one-stop shopping.’’

In the area of productivity and efficiency, partnership facilitated the disability redesign process, work sharing from one component to another, and efforts to reduce

the backlogs in the office of Hearings and Appeals. Partnership also was involved

in developing and implementing recommendations that improved SSA’s use of management information.

In the area of employee empowerment, partnership replaced traditional management-controlled processes with processes involving the direct participation of employees, involving them as key stakeholders in workplace issues which affect them

profoundly.

In the area of work life, partnership has been found to enhance the work environment by helping to create developmental and growth opportunities for employees

which had not previously existed. The Benefit Authorizer Intern program in the

Kansas City Region is an example of job growth, opportunities, and hope for career

advancement.

In the fiscal area, partnership activities have helped SSA save money and avoid

expenditures as compared to traditional labor-management processes. Significant

savings have resulted from reduced litigation costs, reduced relocation and renovation costs, re-missioning of employees and the upgrade of computer systems including the installation of Intelligent Work Station/Local Area Network equipment.

In the area of labor relations, partnership has replaced the traditional adversarial

role with an emphasis on cooperation. Disputes have been settled effectively and at

a lower cost through the utilization of Interest-Based Bargaining.

OIG REPORTS ON PARTNERSHIP

Now, let me discuss the three reports recently issued by SSA’s Office of the Inspector general (OIG) relating to labor-management issues at SSA. SSA respects the

OIG’s views expressed in the reports but, quite frankly, I believe that many of the

conclusions drawn by the OIG in these reports reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of partnership and the relationship of activities arising out

of partnership to the business of SSA.

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The OIG’s conclusions and recommendations reflect a rigid concept of partnership

activities, such as meetings and training. One of SSA’s goals is to deliver customer

responsive, world-class service, and our relationship with the unions is an important

means of advancing that goal. Issues that would have been previously dealt with

in confrontational settings, such as grievances and unfair labor practices, can now

be addressed by workgroups or during the normal course of business in an atmosphere of cooperation engendered by partnership. The report concluded that projects

under interest-based bargaining should not have been included in the partnership

activities inventory. However, the Executive Order itself specifies that agencies

should train participants in interest-based bargaining as part of their implementation of Partnership.

In its report on official time, the OIG attempted to determine whether official

time usage at SSA was in compliance with laws, regulations, and collective bargaining agreements, and whether SSA produces reliable information to determine the

costs of official time. However, the report took into account only SSA’s past manual

official time collection system without recognizing the new automated OUTTS system which will eliminate the errors that OIG identified in the manual system. SSA

has implemented actions to deal with some of the issues raised in the OIG report

prior to its investigation such as conducting a pilot on the OUTTS tracking system.

SSA has been proactive in ensuring that it captures official time, as well as partnership time, in an accurate and timely fashion. In addition, the report did not acknowledge the impact of decisions made by arbitrators and the FLRA. This case law

defines the parameters under which SSA must operate.

The OIG’s report on Council 220 Union Representative and manager observation

on the Use of Management of Official Time at SSA is a collection of observations

and is not an audit report. The survey represents an unscientific sample of opinions

and perceptions, and interpretations of survey data, with no supporting evidence to

verify any information given in the responses. Thus, the survey can only be of limited value in actually assessing the effectiveness of official time management at

SSA.

Nevertheless, the perceptions and opinions on union time are of value. Responses

from small offices indicate that the managers and union representative work closely

to foster trusting relationships. Survey responses show overwhelmingly that managers knew that there was an office where they could consult on official time issues,

and nearly all of the managers described the assistance they had received as accurate, timely, and helpful. Information presented in the report show that there is

communication and a common understanding of official time in Council 220 offices,

providing the basis for a foundation for continuing, effective labor-management relationships.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, let me state that SSA is committed to a new spirit

of cooperation between management and its union partners to bring about real

gains for SSA and for the millions of Americans that SSA serves every day. I can

assure you that SSA’s policies and practices regarding the use of official time fully

comply with applicable labor laws.

SSA has been proactive in forging effective relationships with its union partners

and was the first federal agency to conduct an evaluation of partnership at the national level. Partnership activities at SSA have greatly contributed to many of the

successes we have achieved in enhancing customer service, such as improvements

in our national, toll-free 800 number service. I believe that many of the conclusions

drawn by the OIG reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of partnership and the relationship of activities arising out of partnership to the business of

SSA. Although our partnership is still maturing, and we expect further progress in

the future, partnership efforts between labor and management have been nothing

less than a success story at SSA.

SSA is committed to design, implement, and maintain within SSA a constructive

working relationship between labor and management. Our emphasis is on developing an organizational culture in which labor-management relations are based on

trust, mutual respect, common goals, and shared accountability. While we realize

this will take time, we must take the long-term view and make these investments

now that are vital to ensure future success. The American people deserve no less.

f

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Chairman BUNNING. Thank you, Mr. Barnes. First of all, are you

questioning the integrity of the Inspector General?

Mr. BARNES. No, sir. I would never question the integrity of the

Inspector General. What I am saying is of the three reports that

they have issued, only one of those reports is an actual audit.

That’s an actual audit——

Chairman BUNNING. We asked him to do that. That’s exactly

what we asked him to do.

Mr. BARNES. Right, but what I’m saying is the report on partnership is really a report of their feelings of partnership activities, not

an actual audit.

Chairman BUNNING. That’s exactly what we asked him for.

Mr. BARNES. That’s the point that I’m trying to make.

Chairman BUNNING. Let me ask you, do you support Christmas

shopping by SSA employees to be paid for by taxpayers?

Mr. BARNES. No, I do not.

Chairman BUNNING. Why is it happening in Boston right now?

Mr. BARNES. In Boston, several years ago, a practice evolved

where employees were given limited amounts of time for Christmas

shopping. It went on for several years. When the current Regional

Commissioner became aware of that practice, he stopped it immediately. The issue was litigated with an arbitrator. The arbitrator

ruled that since it was a past practice we had to give notice; that

we could not stop this unilaterally. We’ve given notice; we’ve negotiated it, and the arbitrator has agreed with us that the practice

can end completely this year. So, we have taken——

Chairman BUNNING. Is it happening anywhere else in the United

States?

Mr. BARNES. Not that I’m aware of.

Chairman BUNNING. Are you going to stop it before this year’s

Christmas?

Mr. BARNES. No, the arbitrator’s ruling says that 1998 is the last

year for the practice to exist. We actually had to give notice——

Chairman BUNNING. Do you think I could get in on it?

Mr. BARNES. Beg your pardon?

Chairman BUNNING. Do you think I could get in on it? In other

words, that I could get paid for going Christmas shopping? In other

words, could I go and file a grievance with someone and make sure

that I could get in on the same kind of good deal, sweetheart deal?

I mean, come on, that is the most outrageous, ridiculous thing I’ve

ever heard of negotiated.

Mr. BARNES. It was never negotiated. It was never part of——

Chairman BUNNING. It was part of an arbitration; that’s negotiation as far I’m concerned.

Mr. BARNES. No, sir, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that

it was never negotiated. It was a practice that they had a number

of years ago that continued for several years. It was stopped. Part

of stopping the process——

Chairman BUNNING. In other words, after this year, they’ll never

do it again.

Mr. BARNES. Yes, sir, that’s correct. This is the last year. We did

not allow people to do it in 1997 at all, but as a result of the litigaVerDate 11-SEP-98 16:29 Mar 27, 2000 Jkt 061080 PO 00000 Frm 00258 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 K:\HEARINGS\61080.TXT WAYS3 PsN: WAYS3
256

tion with the arbitrator, the arbitrator’s decision was that we had

to give appropriate notice since it was a past practice and that it

could not continue after this year.

Chairman BUNNING. Do you support union officials threatening

the managers of your Social Security offices?

Mr. BARNES. Absolutely not.

Chairman BUNNING. If you had that individual poking a finger

at your chest—if you had an employee or a union official poking his

finger at your chest saying, ‘‘Don’t you ever know who you’re dealing with. Boys like you can end up missing, and even your family

will never find you.’’ Don’t you think this is a matter more than

robust discussion or would you call it a threat? Do you think a matter like this should be investigated and not told the manager not

to go and file an investigative grievance or any kind of report? Can

you conceive of any situation where an individual found guilty of

such a threat would not be fired?

Mr. BARNES. Well, first of all, the incident, as I understand it—

you’re referring to the one mentioned in yesterday’s hearing—the

individual involved in the incident was not an SSA employee. The

individual was a senior member of the union.

Chairman BUNNING. He was a union official.

Mr. BARNES. He was a union official but not an SSA employee.

When the Regional Commissioner in the Dallas region became

aware of this, he took action to resolve it and worked with the

union to make sure that that person never, never entered another

Social Security facility and he has not. So, the Regional Commissioner took that——

Chairman BUNNING. Can you put that in writing to me?

Mr. BARNES. Yes, sir. I’d be glad to.

[The following was subsequently received:]

Regarding the incident discussed, the union official involved is not an SSA employee, but is a national representative emeritus with the American Federation of

Government Employees (AFGE). There was clearly miscommunication, or a misunderstanding, between the management and union officials who were involved in

the use of the training room which spurred the incident. The lunchroom is in the

same location as the training room, and the two areas are separated by a divider.

When the management official requested that the union representatives move to the

training space, the union official responded in a loud, and, what the manager perceived to be, threatening manner.

On the day in question, various management officials advised and assisted the

manager on how he should handle the situation. The Assistant Regional Commissioner for Operations and Support (ARCMOS), acting for the Regional Commissioner

who was out of town, personally got involved. Subsequently, both he and the Regional Commissioner met with the local president, who is an SSA employee, and

who had been in the office on that day. At different meetings, they both discussed

moving forward in a positive manner so that relations could be improved despite

the incident. As a show of attempting to establish such a relationship, she stated

that the national representative would not go back to the office, and to this day has

never been invited to an SSA office. Throughout this process, discussions were also

held with the district manager, who has since filed a management-initiated grievance with the Regional Vice President, which is permitted under the SSA/AFGE

contract.

Chairman BUNNING. And make sure that we’re following up in

making sure it doesn’t repeat.

Is it right for the manager who wanted to file a grievance against

the union official who threatened him to be told by the regional office to drop it?

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Mr. BARNES. I’m sorry, I didn’t hear the first part of your question.

Chairman BUNNING. Is it the right for a manager who wanted to

file a grievance against the union official who threatened him to be

told by his regional office to drop it? Will you investigate or did you

follow up on the investigation? In other words, you can’t fire the

union official, but you can sure follow up and make sure anything

like this never happens again.

Mr. BARNES. That is the action that was taken by the Regional

Commissioner to make sure that this did not happen again. The

Regional Commissioner involved in this incident has since retired.

This is an incident that happened several years ago.

Chairman BUNNING. Is this a widespread practice in the Social

Security Administration and in the regional offices or in the district

offices? Do you hear of other incidences like this?

Mr. BARNES. No, sir. They’re very, very rare.

Chairman BUNNING. How many of your managers are out there

abandoning their frontline personnel and asking them to ignore

misconduct?

Mr. BARNES. Sorry, would you repeat the question?

Chairman BUNNING. I said, I’m trying to get them in, because my

light’s red—how many of our your managers are out in their district offices abandoning their frontline personnel and asking them

to ignore misconduct?

Mr. BARNES. I don’t imagine that we would have any managers

that would tell employees to overlook misconduct.

Chairman BUNNING. Mrs. Kennelly.

Mrs. KENNELLY. Thank you. Mr. Barnes, let me give you another

opportunity. Yesterday, we heard allegations that the SSA employees could be full-time union employees or representatives abusing

official time. First of all, could you tell me if there’s a pattern of

abuse of official time that is identified with SSA?

Mr. BARNES. First of all, let me make it clear that SSA has a

zero tolerance for any form of fraud; that’s part of our strategic

plan. It’s also been part of our culture for the 30 years that I have

worked for this agency. The examples that were brought up yesterday from the union officials where he alleged that there was an individual on official time working for the Baltimore Orioles and another person selling real estate while on official time. When I read

that testimony yesterday, I immediately referred cases to the Inspector General for investigation, so I have asked the Inspector

General to look into those few allegations even though the person

did not present any proof at the hearing; that is, he made an allegation that was unsubstantiated, but it was very serious and one

that could be very easily reviewed by the Inspector General’s Office

of Investigations. I asked Mr. Huse, who is the Acting Inspector

General, in writing last night to contact the individual who made

the allegations to get whatever information he had and investigate

it. All of those allegations we take seriously. If the person had

made the allegation to us previously, we would have investigated

them at that time. There is an abuse process in our contract. Most

of our managers understand and follow that process.

There was an article in the paper Wednesday that quoted, incorrectly, figures from the IG report on the Council 220 survey. It said

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something to the effect that 20 percent of managers who responded

to the survey said that they take no action when they see abuse.

That figure is not correct. If you look at page 9 of the 220 report,

the number is actually 5 percent and not 20 percent, which means

that 95 percent of our managers who responded do the right thing.

Now, 5 percent is not acceptable, and there are some things we

need to do to follow up on that, and I will, but I just want to make

the record straight, clear that that information was not correct.

Mrs. KENNELLY. Then you’re saying there’s not a pattern of

abuse.

Mr. BARNES. No, ma’am, I do not believe that there is. We have

a process in place to deal with it. Most of our managers avail themselves of that process. Again, even if you look at the survey and

read what the IG reported in this area, most of our managers do,

in fact, understand the process.

Now, another point I want to make in terms of that report, on

page 12 of the same report, it says quite clearly that most of the

managers who responded—well over 90 percent—said that there

was an office that they could go to whenever they needed help in

issues involving official time; 95 percent of them, or in that range,

said that they found the office helpful; over 90 percent said they

found their responses accurate. So, we need to understand that this

is a matter that we take seriously and actually reflected in the IG

report.

Mrs. KENNELLY. You say that the equipped system will enable

the SSA to monitor the time spent on union activities to ensure

that total time taken by union representatives does not exceed the

specified number of hours. How long do you expect it will take before the system will be fully operational, first, and how well do you

think the system will contribute to the prevention of abuse and improvement on controls?

Mr. BARNES. The system was implemented—the OUTTS system,

which is our automated tracking system for union official time—

was implemented in February of 1998 in all regions. Prior to February, it was in pilots in a small number of the regions, but since

February, the system has been in place, and we believe that it will

eliminate entirely the kinds of errors that the IG found in the manual reporting system.

The reporting system that we have used in SSA, again, is manual and is subject to errors in arithmetic because of human nature.

They refer—if you look in the audit report—to several examples

that they found when they reviewed some of the manual reports in

the regions where we had dual reporting; that is where we had

counted the same time twice. Going to the automated system eliminates those kinds of clerical errors and gives us a much more accurate report.

Mrs. KENNELLY. Thank you, Mr. Barnes.

Chairman BUNNING. The Subcommittee will recess. We have a

vote on the floor. It’s on the rule on health care, and we will be

back, if you will bear with us.

[Recess.]

Chairman BUNNING. The Subcommittee will come to order.

Mr. Christensen will inquire.

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Mr. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Barnes, I want

to go back to a question that the Chairman asked earlier about this

Christmas shopping. I want to know personally from your point of

view—you’ve been there for 30 years, is that right?

Mr. BARNES. Yes.

Mr. CHRISTENSEN. How many years have you been in the HR Department?

Mr. BARNES. I’ve been the Director of Human Resources since

March of last year. All of the other 28 years I spent in Operations

which is the part of Social Security that deals with field offices and

the folks who actually provide direct service. So, 28 years before I

came to the current job were all spent in that department.

Mr. CHRISTENSEN. In your personal testimony, Paul Barnes the

individual, do you think it’s right that the employees of SSA should

have an opportunity to go Christmas shopping at the expense of

American taxpayers?

Mr. BARNES. No, sir, I do not. When we became aware of it, or

when the current Regional Commissioner became aware of the

practice, he started the legal process to stop that activity and has

been successful in doing so. There is——

Mr. CHRISTENSEN. Mr. Barnes, I would not call success allowing

Christmas shopping at the expense of the American taxpayer to go

on one day more than when you discovered it. That is outrageous.

I mean, if the American taxpayer had any idea what’s going on in

your administration, behind closed doors, out in the shopping malls

each and every year, 1998 included, they would be outraged. They

would be outraged, and, yet, it’s going to happen this year again

according to your testimony. Is that right?

Mr. BARNES. Yes, sir. As I indicated, we are bound by the law.

We have followed the procedures to stop the practice. It was litigated, and the decision——

Mr. CHRISTENSEN. Listen, Mr. Barnes, I appreciate your straightforwardness is this answer, but you’re not addressing the issue.

When the Chairman talked about negotiation, you said, ‘‘Well, it

wasn’t negotiated.’’ Well, it was negotiated if the arbitrator continued to rely upon it as a past practice. It was part of the things that

were on the table as far as negotiation. If you guys truly thought

this was outrageous practice by union officials, that using American taxpayer dollars to go Christmas shopping year after year

after year, 1998 included, you would have said this is not something that’s negotiable. This is an outrageous practice, and we’re

not going to let the American taxpayer be abused in this area.

Now, let all the other areas be abused but not this area.

Mr. BARNES. As I indicated, when we became aware of the practice, we stopped——

Mr. CHRISTENSEN. It’s not stopped.

Mr. BARNES. The issue was litigated. We are bound legally by the

decision of the arbitrator in terms of how the practice is to be terminated which is what we did. We were successful, and the practice will stop.

Mr. CHRISTENSEN. OK, is working part time at Camden Yards

while on official time necessary, reasonable, and in the public interest?

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Mr. BARNES. Absolutely not. As I indicated earlier, when I heard

the allegation yesterday, even though there was no substantiation

of the allegation, I immediately wrote the Inspector General and

asked that they contact the union official so that it could be investigated.

Mr. CHRISTENSEN. Is the pursuit of personal business—hobbies,

fishing, golf, record collecting—necessary, reasonable, and in the

public interest?

Mr. BARNES. Absolutely not.

Mr. CHRISTENSEN. Is rallying stewards to support political candidates necessary?

Mr. BARNES. No.

Mr. CHRISTENSEN. How come it happens?

Mr. BARNES. What we had yesterday were allegations that I’ve

asked the Inspector General to look into. I don’t know how many

of those allegations are true; how many of them are rumor; how

many of them are innuendo. Our obligation is to investigate the allegation. The Office of Investigations in the IG is the appropriate

place to investigate these kinds of allegations. Some less serious allegations we can investigate ourselves, but the magnitude of those

allegations were such that I thought we needed professional investigators to look into it, which was why it was referred to the IG.

Mr. CHRISTENSEN. Well, according to the IG, 25 percent of the

managers suspect that there if official abuse going on. Twenty-five

percent of the managers also during sworn testimony are regarding

this as official abuse. Now, if you’ve been there for 30 years, you’ve

been in this position 2 years, it would be nice to see some action

rather than just more inquiries and more delay type tactics. As you

can tell, I’m not a big fan of some of the union activities that we’ve

heard about already, and I’d like to see this stopped rather than

go through another Christmas shopping season and allowing the

American taxpayer to be abused once again. So, I would hope in

your responsibilities as the HR head that you would bring this to

a halt prior to the Christmas season.

Mr. BARNES. In order to respond to the first part of the question

that you asked when you talked about the IG survey where 25 percent of the managers said they suspected abuse, that report actually shows that most of the managers who suspected abuse took

the right action to follow up on it, and many of those were resolved.

That’s what we are about. When issues come up, our commitment

is to resolve them. Some of the suspicions turned out not to be

abuse.

Mr. CHRISTENSEN. Well, I’m out of time, but I hope we have another opportunity to come back and reexamine this area. Thank

you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman BUNNING. The gentleman from Arizona.

Mr. HAYWORTH. I thank the Chairman. Let’s pursue that for a

second. Mr. Barnes, what level of abuse is tolerable in your mind?

Mr. BARNES. No level of abuse is tolerable. I indicated earlier,

the agency has a zero tolerance for abuse and fraud of any kind.

Mr. HAYWORTH. All right. I want the record to show, and I’m

glad we have people here recording this, because now we have

sworn testimony that there is zero tolerance for abuse. Therefore,

in that spirit, Mr. Chairman, since there seems to be a difference

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of definition on what an arbitrator decides is tolerable—to allow

Christmas shopping on the taxpayers’ dime to continue through

1998—Mr. Chairman, I would hope that the Members of this Subcommittee and our Full Committee and, indeed, the Congress,

would take specific action to ensure that we don’t confuse Uncle

Sam and Santa Claus in the Boston region this year and specifically move to abridge Christmas shopping on the taxpayers’ dime.

That is no abridgement of people’s individual rights, because, as

I’m sure our witness will concur, freedom to shop and take care of

other errands should take place on private time and not on the

Government bill.

Mr. Barnes, you said you respect the report from the Office of the

Inspector General, but you believe there are some misunderstandings, and you relayed those in your testimony. I appreciate the fact

you respect that report. Can you offer some rationale, then, why so

many managers were instructed by their union that they didn’t

even have to respond to the survey information requested? Do you

think that’s evidence of good faith and enlightenment on the part

of the union to tell managers not to respond to the OIG inquiries?

Mr. BARNES. The head of the IG at the time that the reviews

were done was David Williams. He asked then Acting Commissioner Callahan for his assistance in resolving some issues of noncooperation. Acting Commissioner Callahan asked me along with

our General Counsel, Arthur Fried, to work with the union and

with the IG to resolve those issues. We did that. We met with the

union; we had conference calls. Based on those discussions, the

AFGE National Office issued a memorandum to all union officials

asking for their cooperation. The Inspector General then wrote

back to Dr. Callahan saying that the assistance he needed had

been provided and that he could move forward with the audit. Now,

I’ll be glad to provide a copy of that——

Mr. HAYWORTH. I’d love to see that written record, and I would,

in fact, formally make a request.

[The following was subsequently received:]

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Mr. BARNES. I’ll be glad to do that, but I——

Mr. HAYWORTH. We’d love to see it, because it betrays—in fact,

your accounting of this, Mr. Barnes, betrays a notion that is foreign

to me in terms of requirements of Government employees on the

public dime. To enter into discussions as if this were somehow negotiable when we’re asking for proof of performance to get to the

bottom of a problem, it seems to me, smacks of a tolerance level

that betrays the fundamental notion of, first of all, of a management-labor relationship where certain reasonable requests for information are being abridged, but, secondly, it betrays to me the

notion that there is no zero tolerance level of hijinks. People are

allowed to rule the roost as they see fit, and then we enter into negotiations where, perhaps, an inquiry will result, and then maybe

a memo comes out that says we’ve had those discussions and so

now we’ve solved the problem. We’ve not solved the problem.

The problem, as I see it, Mr. Barnes, in the words of baseball immortal Yogi Berra is deja vu all over again. We saw it with the IRS

hearings where people would come from the Government, ‘‘Oh,

there’s no problem. Oh, there are isolated incidents’’ to the point

where in the other body, finally employees stepped forward having

their identities shielded and then finally, finally, people stepped

forward to say, ‘‘You know, there really is a problem.’’ And it went

beyond memos, and it went beyond bureaucratese into genuine

abuses. I’m seeing the same type of abuses. This Congress must

move forward to solve them. I thank you for your time.

Chairman BUNNING. The gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Hulshof.

Mr. HULSHOF. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Barnes, on page

2 of your written testimony, you say that ‘‘SSA, like other Federal

agencies and many firms in the private sector, such as Ford,

Chrysler, Inland Steel, Armco Steel, pays for approved time spent

by its employees on official time.’’ And I guess the difference here

that probably doesn’t need to be stated but which I’m going to state

is that union officials or union employees at Ford, Chrysler, Inland

Steel, and Armco Steel are not paid by taxpayer dollars, and I

think that’s the reason that we are here. I think from the thrust

of your written testimony and your statements, certainly, you don’t

believe that this is any sort of partisan witch hunt, what this Subcommittee’s trying to get down to the bottom line, do you, Mr.

Barnes?

Mr. BARNES. No, I do not. The examples that we provided were

to illustrate that the concept of official time is not unique to the

Federal Government. That was the purpose of the example.

Mr. HULSHOF. A couple of things regarding your testimony and

you talked about there is a process in place, and I think we’ve

learned there is a process, and, yet, what we’re trying to determine

is if the process is flawed, are there ways that we can improve that

process? For instance, you made reference to the number of official

hours having gone down from one year to the next, and, yet, while

we may be able to track overall hours, the specific activities during

those hours—and you’ve heard my colleagues talk about some of

the most blatant abuses of official time—what suggestions do you

have to improve the process as far as not just keeping track of official time, but what activities are conducted during that official time

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to make sure that tax dollars are being spent in an appropriate

manner?

Mr. BARNES. The process that we have in place now, when followed, works well. We have shown that you can review allegations,

review and investigate them, and where the allegations are found

to be correct, to be true, we correct them. The allegations that were

made yesterday are serious, and we are investigating them. Had

they been made earlier, we would have investigated them earlier.

So, the process is there in order for us to address issues of abuse.

What we need to do is make sure that everybody is in compliance

with the process. I believe, and the IG report reflects, that most of

our managers are in compliance. There are 5 percent of the managers who don’t follow the process, and they are the people that we

need to follow up on.

We now have scheduled biweekly conference calls on the appropriate procedures. In December of last year, in response to questions from managers, we issued eight pages of questions and answers on instructions for how to deal with official time issues. So,

we’ve taken a number of steps to make sure that people have the

information that they need so they can avail themselves of the

process.

Mr. HULSHOF. Except, Mr. Barnes—and I’m not taking issue

with you—but, for instance, when you talk about in your testimony

the new automated official union time tracking system,

OUTTS——

Mr. BARNES. Yes.

Mr. HULSHOF [continuing]. OK you indicate or you believe will

enable SSA to monitor official time and ensure total time spent on

certain activities is not excessive, and yesterday the Inspector General and certainly the four witnesses, the gentlemen we had here

testifying yesterday, said that the data that comes out will only be

as good as the data that goes in, and union officials are refusing

to supply the needed data. How can we make sure that this system

that you champion is going to work?

Mr. BARNES. Union officials have not refused to provide the data

that go in. The issue of the IG questionnaire was one that dealt

with the issue of cooperation. We have worked with the union;

we’ve worked with the Management Association; we’ve worked with

agency executives who have systems that accurately capture the

time that’s used. The IG audit report had some suggestions that we

are implementing as part of that process. One of the things they

suggested that we do is negative verification; that is, those offices

from which we don’t get a report, we should not assume didn’t have

any activity, but should follow up with them, which we’re doing, in

an automated way as part of this process to take every step humanly possible to make sure that the information is correct. That’s

what the OUTTS system will do.

Mr. HULSHOF. And we’ll get to visit with the AFGE in a minute.

Let me ask you, is it true that SSA recently negotiated away the

agency’s right to check references on employees seeking promotion,

and, instead, managers are forced to select candidates blindly from

an alphabetized list?

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Mr. BARNES. I’m not familiar with that. I need to check and see.

I’ve not heard that that has occurred, but I would like to check and

provide a statement for the record.

Mr. HULSHOF. I would appreciate that. Thank you, Mr. Barnes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The following was subsequently received:]

SSA has not waived its right to do reference checks on new hires. In Article 26,

section 11(a) of the SSA/AFGE Merit Promotion Plan, however, there is a provision

which provides that once a well-qualified list is established by an assessment panel

for internal promotions, no additional information can be gathered by a selecting

offical.

It is important to note, however, that for the largest organizational component

within SSA, the Office of Operations, the SAA/AFGE Merit Promotion Plan does not

apply. Operations is still operating under a prior plan, the National Promotion Plan,

which permits reference checks after a well-qualified list has been established.

Chairman BUNNING. Mr. Collins.

Mr. COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Barnes, I’ve been

in a small business for some time, about 35 years. In fact, I’ve been

in the trucking business for equivalent length of time. And in our

business—you know, everyone always has a little bit of a slogan for

their own operation—we have a little saying that when we have a

driver of one of our rigs who becomes lax, nonattentive, ignores a

lot of things that he should be paying close attention to, we say at

that point there’s a lot of slack between the seat and the steering

wheel. Based on the reports that we’ve seen and heard and read

in the last few days, I believe there’s a lot of slack between the seat

and the steering wheel at the Social Security Administration. The

IG report confirms that; the statements that we’ve read and heard

have confirmed that; you, in a sense, have confirmed that. That’s

got to change. I know that you’ve said there have been some

changes taking place and are taking place today. The IG says there

are some changes taking place, positive changes. That must happen. We must have a change.

You know, the funds that you deal with, they’re not government

funds. Those funds come out of the first dollar earned of every

working American. Part of that first dollar, every dollar, goes to

the Social Security Administration for you to look after, so that

they will have it in their retirement years to help fill a void.

When you’re slack, negligent, not complying with the rules and

regulations and the contracts that you have with your employees,

that’s wrong, and it must stop. I hope these hearings, I hope these

reports will result in a lot of change. There will be change, if

change doesn’t occur.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BARNES. I’d like to respond to that.

Chairman BUNNING. Go ahead and respond.

Mr. BARNES. I have worked for the Social Security Administration for 30 years. I was born in the State of Tennessee. I’ve worked

in Georgia. I’ve picked cotton; I’ve pulled corn; I’ve stripped sorghum. I understand what it means to work hard. I started as a

claims representative. My mother receives Social Security.

If you look at our record, if you look at what we are doing now,

our performance levels are the best they have ever been. The customer satisfaction surveys that are done by independent groups

show that customer satisfaction with our service is at its highest

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level ever. The 800 number that we have was voted as the best in

either public or private sector. Our work on the Y2K has been recognized as the best in government.

A lot of these things grew out of partnerships. I have been personally involved in a lot of the partnership activities that have led

to improvements in customer service. Customer service for me is

the most important thing that we do in Social Security to make

sure that everybody, not just my mother, but everybody who is entitled to a check gets the right amount and on time.

We take very seriously that responsibility. We are not slack.

We’re not perfect. There are things that we are working to improve

that we talk about in this report, but the service level of our organization right now is the best it’s been in the 30 years I’ve been

with the agency.

Mr. COLLINS. That is an indication of positive change, and it also

is an indication that you’re very defensive.

Mr. BARNES. No, sir, I’m just reporting——

Mr. COLLINS. We want the results, and the results are that the

fleecing of the American taxpayer must stop. Fourteen million dollars in one year for union activities in the Social Security Administration is too much. That’s down to about 13—still too much. That’s

fleecing the American taxpayer, and it must stop.

Chairman BUNNING. Mr. Weller.

Mr. WELLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to also commend you for holding these hearings. As the guardians of the taxpayer dollar, which, of course, is the responsibility of the Congress,

I want to commend you for bringing this issue forward.

Mr. Barnes, you know, I’m a supporter of collective bargaining,

as I’ve pointed out every day of these hearings, and I’m anxious to

see collective bargaining work. As a legislator, I’m also anxious to

work to protect the taxpayer dollar.

I find in one’s constituents’ contact, our congressional offices,

that most of the requests for help from constituents tend to revolve

around Social Security. In many cases seniors need a little help

cutting redtape. We appreciate the response of employees that you

have, and sometimes we’re frustrated when it takes too long because we know how frustrated senior citizens are when they

haven’t gotten their check yet or their benefits they feel they’re

due. We’re anxious to work to see that.

I become, frankly, a little concerned when those who are charged

with safeguarding the Social Security dollar, safeguarding the Social Security Trust Fund, clearly, in case after case appear to be

abusing the tax dollar. You use the term ‘‘official time,’’ and I believe it should be called ‘‘taxpayer time,’’ because it’s time at the

taxpayer’s expense.

We’ve uncovered in the last few days cases where just examples

which are easy to remember about employees of the Social Security

Administration going shopping for Christmas gifts on taxpayer

time while others are working. A case over in Baltimore where an

employee, on taxpayer time, is two-timing the taxpayers by working over at Camden Yards, some speculate as a hot dog vendor.

I’m trying to get a feel for how you, as Associate Administrator,

go about investigating allegations. Yesterday John Reusing, under

oath, who’s a long-time official of the union and Social Security OfVerDate 11-SEP-98 16:29 Mar 27, 2000 Jkt 061080 PO 00000 Frm 00269 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 K:\HEARINGS\61080.TXT WAYS3 PsN: WAYS3
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fice of Administration in Baltimore, pointed out under oath that

there’s virtually no supervision of officers and stewards by management or union officials. He stated that this has led to rampant

abuse of official time, which, of course, folks back home call ‘‘taxpayer time.’’

When there’s allegations regarding employees going Christmas

shopping on taxpayer time or allegations where there’s the appearance of abuse where somebody is two-timing the taxpayers by selling hotdogs at the ball game while he or she should be in the office

helping taxpayers with Social Security benefits—how do you go

about investigating this? Because, clearly, from the statements of

those under oath yesterday, no one referred the hot dog vendor to

the Inspector General, even though Mr. Reusing said it was common knowledge yesterday that this abuse was going on. Tell me

what the process is when you hear this where an employee is abusing taxpayer time, that you begin an investigation into this type of

allegation.

Mr. BARNES. As I indicated earlier, when the issue of whether or

not an employee is on official time while working for the Baltimore

Orioles came to our attention, we did what we should do, which is

to have the Inspector General investigate the allegation. It is an allegation, but we will investigate it, and we’ve already made——

Mr. WELLER. When did you make this request to investigate the

hot dog vendor?

Mr. BARNES. About 6:30 last night, I sent——

Mr. WELLER. So after this hearing brought forward, even though

it was common knowledge in the office——

Mr. BARNES. Well, it was not common knowledge to myself or to

managers. If we had heard that earlier, we would have investigated earlier. What you have is a report, unsubstantiated, from

one person that we are investigating.

We investigate allegations of abuse. I have not found in those investigations any pattern of abuse. As I recall in the IG testimony,

he made the same statement in terms of not finding any pattern

of abuse.

What people allege or what they may perceive in terms of what

is actual reality are often two different things.

Mr. WELLER. Mr. Barnes, you said——

Mr. BARNES. Our obligation is to investigate, which we do.

Mr. WELLER. And, Mr. Barnes, why, the question is, in the case

of the hot dog vendor, why did you wait until this hearing uncovered this allegation, when there were allegations in the Inspector

General’s report, which we’ve all had in our hands for some time

now?

Mr. BARNES. There’s nothing in the Inspector General’s report

that talks about an allegation of someone working for the Baltimore Orioles selling——

Mr. WELLER. Well, if the management and workers, including

union officials, say it’s common knowledge, why would the management not look into it?

Mr. BARNES. One person who—you have one person who said it

was common knowledge. It was not common knowledge, in my

view. We were not aware of it. When we became aware of the allegation, we asked that an investigation be conducted.

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Mr. WELLER. Do you have examples of where allegations were

made where you investigated it and found the allegations were correct that you can share with us?

Mr. BARNES. Beg your pardon?

Mr. WELLER. Do you have an example, a recent example, where

there was an allegation made where you made an investigation and

found out the allegation was correct? Have you investigated——

Mr. BARNES. Yes, there was an example—and I can provide it in

writing for the panel—of an abuse situation involving an official in

the New York region. The Inspector General——

Chairman BUNNING. Without objection, you can send us that.

Mr. BARNES. Beg your pardon?

Chairman BUNNING. Without objection, you can send us that report, if you will.

Mr. BARNES. OK, we’d be glad to.

[The following was subsequently received:]

An example of an abuse situation in which the OIG conducted an investigation

and action was taken against a union representative is as follows. OIG looked into

irregularities in the travel practices of an employee who works in a field office.

When the investigation was concluded, the U.S. Attorney declined to initiate criminal prosecution. However, the case was returned to the Agency for administrative

action. After considerable deliberation, the employee was charged with knowingly

and repeatedly accepting payment of travel and per diem to which he was not entitled. He received a 60-day suspension.

Chairman BUNNING. Thank you.

Mr. WELLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman BUNNING. OK. I’ve got a couple of questions that I

want to get some answers, and I don’t want to delay the hearing,

but I have got to get answers for these.

How many people are specifically involved in the partnership activity?

Mr. BARNES. In SSA, we have 42 partnership councils, 42——

Chairman BUNNING. OK.

Mr. BARNES [continuing]. At various levels and——

Chairman BUNNING. How many people are involved?

Mr. BARNES. Most of the partnership councils have 10 to 12

members. I can give you a list and an actual count. I don’t have

that with me today, but I can provide for the record——

Chairman BUNNING. Would you please provide that for the committee?

Mr. BARNES [continuing]. Yes—the members of the 42 partnership councils.

[The following was subsequently received:]

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Chairman BUNNING. Is it right to spend time away from serving

the American people without accounting for what time has been

spent away, which is what the union does?

Mr. BARNES. Well, no, we——

Chairman BUNNING. You don’t know what they’re doing on their

union or their time.

Mr. BARNES. Beg your pardon?

Chairman BUNNING. You don’t know what they’re doing. They

don’t have to fill out and tell you what they’re doing. They only

have to say: We were on this time.

Mr. BARNES. No, sir, the reports——

Chairman BUNNING. No, sir?

Mr. BARNES [continuing]. The form that they complete requires

more information than that, and most often the forms are completed properly. Where a form is not completed properly, then we

need to have some dialogue we to make sure that it’s done. But the

forms—and we’ll be glad to provide examples, as the IG did——

Chairman BUNNING. Well, I mean, you could provide examples

with the ones that have the forms filled out correctly, but we know

that there are forms that are not filled out, and you don’t know

what the people are doing on official time.

Mr. BARNES. I’m sure there’s some examples where forms are

filled out incorrectly——

Chairman BUNNING. Why is a union allowed to determine the

number of hours of union representation? In other words, have you

negotiated that in your contract with them?

Mr. BARNES. What we have in the contract is a provision that

says that the amount of official time that’s to be granted for a particular activity has to be reasonable and necessary. They provide

their assessment of what’s reasonable and necessary, and we have

to make a judgment as to whether or not that’s correct.

Chairman BUNNING. Why is the union allowed to determine the

location of union representation? In other words, why would three

be in one office and none be in another office?

Mr. BARNES. The example in Tulsa that you are referring to is

unusual. It’s the only office where we have——

Chairman BUNNING. That’s very unusual; we were told that.

Mr. BARNES. I understand. I was trying to explain what happened. In Tulsa, three union officials who were 100-percenters are

officers at different levels of the union. One is a national officer;

one is the regional vice president for the entire Dallas region, and

one is the State president for the State of Oklahoma. By happenstance, they wound up in the same office. It’s unusual. It’s rare.

But that office is not penalized for having those three full-time

union officials there. The way we allocate resources to our field offices throughout the country is to not consider the union officials

assigned to those offices. Since that’s an activity that benefits the

whole organization, whatever staffing that is assigned to union activity is literally taken off the top and then the staffing is allocated

to the offices.

Chairman BUNNING. Mr. Barnes, your testimony conflicts with

the manager’s testimony from yesterday.

Mr. BARNES. Well, I’ll be glad to provide in writing a——

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Chairman BUNNING. In other words, he said that when those

three are not available to work, he has a difficult time in keeping

up with regular Social Security business.

Mr. BARNES. I will be glad to provide for the record, from the Regional Commissioner in Dallas, how staffing is allocated to the office in Oklahoma.

[The following was subsequently received:]

SSA addresses its need for union representatives in formulating the budget that

it submits to Congress. SSA bases its allocation of staff to its 1,300 field offices on

workload projections. However, at the regional and local areas, it makes allowances

according to the level of authorized labor relations activity involving the local union

representatives in each office.

With respect to the Tulsa, Oklahoma office, the Dallas Region allocates one fulltime equivalent (FTE) for each 100 percent union official in that region. Those FTEs

are distributed to the appropriate area. In turn, the area director, in determining

staffing for each of his/her facilities, factors in the allocation for union representatives. The first determinant in allocating staff is based on workloads. Other special

factors are considered as well. Such considerations included non-English speaking

clientele, education levels, literacy, poverty, etc.

Chairman BUNNING. When does the current national agreement

expire?

Mr. BARNES. In March of next year.

Chairman BUNNING. And you’re not going to roll it over, I hope?

Mr. BARNES. Well, we have not decided what we’re going to do

with the contract.

Chairman BUNNING. We’re going to be watching very closely to

see what is done with that agreement, if you are really going to get

to some of the problems that we’re trying to address.

This is the last question. You have indicated SSA’s ability to

monitor the union use of official time is severely hampered by a series of arbitrator or Federal Labor Relation Authority, FLRA, decisions. Can you explain this?

Mr. BARNES. Before we worked out what was in the contract for

1990 that deals with the concept of bank and non-bank hours for

official time, in terms of how much time is available, there was a

decision from an arbitrator——

Chairman BUNNING. Is it binding on SSA?

Mr. BARNES. Yes, sir, it is, and I’ll be glad to provide you a copy

of that.

[The Arbitration Proceedings referred to by Chairman Bunning

is being retained in the Committee files.]

Mr. BARNES. Basically, the arbitrator’s decision did not establish

any limits on how much time could be used. So what we did in the

negotiation process was to establish some limits, but, still, the decision also gets into how many questions you can ask in terms of the

activity that the person is engaged in; that is, how much you need

to put on the form. We’ll be glad to share that form——

[The following was subsequently received:]

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Chairman BUNNING. Can you make suggestions to this Subcommittee, if you are having problems, for legislative remedies,

some of the problems and some of the things that you might see

that we could remedy by legislation?

Mr. BARNES. We believe that we have worked through those

problems with the processes that we have established since 1990

to deal with the issue of how official time is assigned——

Chairman BUNNING. Mr. Barnes, I’m very patient, but in looking

at the record since 1990, there are a lot of people at this Subcommittee, and I’m sure at the Full Committee, that don’t agree

with that. So rather than us writing legislation that you may not

agree with, I suggest that you make recommendations to this Subcommittee, because then we may be able to work together to better

this partnership relationship that you have with your union. Otherwise, you’re liable to get legislation that you don’t like, and I don’t

want to do that. So I would suggest that you work with the Subcommittee, and then, if we can work together and find some solutions to what we think are very serious problems, we can do better

that way than having it stuffed down someone’s throat.

You’re not going to respond?

Mr. BARNES. Oh, I thought I already did. We believe that legislation is not necessary——

Chairman BUNNING. OK.

Mr. BARNES [continuing]. Because we’ve been able to work

through the issues and to work them out.

Chairman BUNNING. Anybody else?

[No response.]

We may be submitting additional questions in writing to you for

the record. Thank you for your testimony. We appreciate it very

much.

[Questions from Chairman Bunning, and Mr. Barnes’ answers,

follow:]

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The second panel today—and this is one name I’m going to mispronounce, I’ll tell you, the name’s tough—Witold Skwierczynski; is

that right? No? OK. [Laughter.]

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. Close.

Chairman BUNNING. Close?

Would you pronounce your name, so I can——

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. Yes, Witold Skwierczynski. I use the Polish

pronunciation: ‘‘W’s’’ as ‘‘V’s’’ and the ‘‘Cz’’ and a ‘‘Ch.’’

Chairman BUNNING. ‘‘Sirchenski?’’

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. ‘‘Skeer’’——

Chairman BUNNING. ‘‘Skeerchenski.’’

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. Like a ‘‘V,’’ ‘‘Skwierczynski.’’

Chairman BUNNING. Skwierczynski. Thank you.

President of the National Council of the Social Securites Administration Field Operations locals, American Federation of Government Employees, AFL–CIO.

Would you please rise and please raise your right hand.

[Witness sworn.]

Chairman BUNNING. If you would begin your testimony, we

would appreciate it.

STATEMENT OF WITOLD SKWIERCZYNSKI, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL COUNCIL OF SSA FIELD OPERATIONS LOCALS,

AMERICAN FEDERATION OF GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES,

AFL–CIO, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS; AND COCHAIR, NATIONAL

PARTNERSHIP COUNCIL

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. OK, I’ve submitted a statement which I

would like included in the record.

Chairman BUNNING. Absolutely, without objection.

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. My position in the union is I represent Social Security employees who work in 1,200 field offices across the

country, the size ranging from 1 person in some of our resident stations, to teleservice centers, also 37 teleservice centers I represent

which are as large as 550 people.

I’ve been very disturbed about the statements and allegations

that have been made by some Members of this Subcommittee in

the past 3 days regarding alleged abuses by union officials of official time. In fact, I’m outraged by the kind of distorted statements

and the kind of allegations that have come out of some Members

of this Subcommittee. I think what I’m hearing is anti-union bashing at its fullest extent.

Union reps in Social Security are dedicated and hard-working

and deeply committed to the Social Security program. Many of

them work long hours, unpaid, after work and on weekends, in

order to fulfill their representational responsibilities. I frequently

work 70 to 80 hours a week doing my job, and I’m not paid for

more than 40, and I’m proud of the dedication of the Social Security union representatives that represent the employees of this

agency.

Their primary concern is to create the best possible working conditions which benefit both the worker and the public. The public

benefits from the unions’ and the employees’ concern that SSA deliver the best possible service.

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We have representatives in 1,300 offices. The Subcommittee has

criticized the number of representatives we have. Based on the nature of our structure, we need representatives in all our offices.

We are 72 percent women. Those are the employees of the Social

Security Administration. Our reps are approximately the same

number. We’re talking about a female work force that is about an

average age of 42 years old.

We serve the disabled, widows, senior citizens, and the poor, and

we do a great job doing that.

Now it’s been said by the Chairperson that we go slow, no show,

and I think that those kinds of characterizations are unfortunate.

I think our union officials weren’t going slow or no-showing when

the bombing occurred in Oklahoma City. I left the next day with

my health and safety chairperson, Howard Eggerman, flew to Oklahoma City at night, and met with the employees the next day, and

had one of the most traumatic experiences of my life. Those employees were begging for our assistance and for our effort, and were

quite happy that the union understood their concerns.

After that Oklahoma City disaster, we met with the agency and

set up a National Partnership Council on Security. Through our efforts in that partnership council, we have set up a number of measures which improve the security of our Social Security offices and

minimize threats to not only employees’ security in these offices,

but also the public that visits the offices. These are the kinds of

partnership measures that do not show that the union is going

slow or no-showing.

Characterizations that the union is stealing taxpayer money—I

don’t think the union was stealing taxpayer money when, during

the furlough, we had immediate meetings with the agency, the congressionally mandated furlough, we had immediate meetings with

the agency to determine how we were going to continue to deliver

services to the public while our offices were stripped to virtually no

staff.

During the second phase of the furlough, we also had meetings

with the agency to try to minimize the problems that our employees were having when they had to work without pay. These are the

kinds of actions that are responsible actions that the union has

taken to improve services and to ensure that the public continues

to get their appropriate services.

We’ve met with the agency on a partnership level to respond to

criticism from Congress about the dysfunctionality of some aspects

of the disability program. We’ve cooperated with the agency and set

up a number of work groups. We’ve even entertained shifting some

of the work that’s traditionally done by the Federal Government to

the States in order to see—and the States have done the same—

in order to see if we can come up with better ways of delivering

disability services to the public, streamlining the service, and also

having a more accurate product. These are responsible actions by

a responsible union.

These efforts take time. Our disability program is extremely complex. To radically change the way that operates takes the effort of

a number of people—first, thinking out loud, trying to figure out

methods that assist the taxpayers, and all this takes time. And

that’s one of the reasons in our partnership efforts where you see

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that there’s an escalation in use of time. Things that normally were

done formerly by managers and staffers in headquarters in Baltimore, who had no experience with the direct-service delivery aspects of the job, are now being looked at by actual workers.

Our workers, a typical worker, according to the OIG report,

spends less than two hours a week, our typical union rep spends

less than two hours a week on official time activities. What do they

do? They’re meeting with management trying to look at how to improve operations in that office. They deal with employee concerns

and problems, and by dealing with those kinds of problems, they

prevent them from festering out of control. They file occasional

grievances. They also are trained by us on how to deal with the

agency and provide—they’re trained in partnership aspects and

how to work cooperatively with the agency to provide better services to the public.

These are not official time abusers. These are people who

spend—have full workloads, providing services to the public, and

spend a few hours a week dealing with their management trying

to solve the problems of the work force. I think the dedicated work

of our union officials deserves applause, rather than the kind of

criticism that we’ve been hearing in the last 3 days.

In the rare instances where abuse occurs, I encourage investigating that abuse. When alleged abusive situations have been brought

to my attention, we’ve looked at it and we’ve taken action. Our

local presidents do the same. Union representatives have had their

time pulled when evidence showed that they are abusing time, and

we’ll do that in the future. We don’t shy away from our responsibilities under the contract. The contract has a clause which requires

management to bring to our attention abuse allegations, and when

they have brought those issues to our attention, we’ve taken action,

and intend to continue to take such action.

We’ve always endorsed efficient time-reporting procedures. In the

1990 contract, there was a union proposal that was placed in the

contract which led to the OUTTS system, which, hopefully, will improve the recordkeeping aspect of official time and allow Congress

to see that the time that we’re using is accurately reported.

There have been comments made by individuals who testified

yesterday that the employees are discouraged by the fact that we

have union officials who are on 100 percent time and performing

no direct services with the public. Well, in actuality, we have about

one full-time official for every 360 employees. We see our membership going up while staff is going down. I think the employees are

voting with their wallets, that they are in favor of the type of representation we provide.

In this kind of an organization, it requires some professional representation. Our full-time officials, like myself—and I’m a full-time

official and, as I said before, work 70 to 80 hours a week representing the union with the agency. I’m on three partnership councils.

That takes up great amounts of my time at the national level.

We’re dealing with rather large issues on how the agency operates

with diminished staffing, and I think it’s essential that we have

some full-time officials in order to fulfill that task.

I’d be glad to respond to some of the other allegations that have

been made. I’m sure I’ll be asked the question, so I’ll start off on

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the Christmas leave issue. The Christmas leave issue is a misnomer. Christmas shopping is a phrase that’s used with regard to

that situation. In private industry the employers frequently provide

their workers with a Christmas party. In private industry, employers frequently provide their workers with a Christmas turkey. In

private industry, employers frequently provide their employees

with a bottle of wine. In Social Security, there are no appropriated

funds for any of those activities. The agency in the Boston region

was providing the employees, some of the employees in that region,

not all the employees, some of the employees in that region with

two hours of time off. Some of them went to church. Some of those

employees went to see their families. Some of them may have

shopped.

But to say that employees in that region are not entitled to a reward for their dedicated services I think is wrong. I think you probably provide your staffs with time off during the Christmas holidays as a reward for their dedicated service to you, and if you

don’t, you should.

What happened here was not something the union negotiated.

This is something that developed over the years that management

provided. It’s been characterized as union officials going off. No, it

wasn’t union officials at all; it was employees. The union didn’t negotiate the benefit. But when management tried to terminate it, we

took our responsibility, which is our responsibility—we are a labor

union; when management tries to terminate a benefit, a labor

union’s job is to fight to maintain that benefit, and that’s all we

did, and we lost. We went to arbitration and we lost. And that’s

the story on the Christmas leave issue.

Chairman BUNNING. I think your time has expired about 5 minutes ago.

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. OK. Well, in closing, Congressman, I appreciate the opportunity to present the views of the union at this hearing.

[The prepared statement follows:]

Statement of Witold Skwierczynski, President, National Council of SSA

Field Operations Locals, American Federation of Government Employees,

AFL–CIO, Chicago, Illinois; and Cochair, National Partnership Council

Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, my name is Witold

Skwierczynski. I am the President of the AFGE National Council of SSA Field Operations Locals (AFGE Council 220). I am also the Co-Chair of the AFGE–SSA National Partnership Council. On behalf of some 50,000 working men and women represented by AFGE at the Social Security Administration, I appreciate the opportunity to testify today before this Subcommittee.

I want you to know that AFGE is committed to providing the Subcommittee a

complete and accurate account of both official time practices and partnership activities at SSA. AFGE is proud of its track record of effective and responsible union

representation. We are especially proud of the work we have done to improve the

delivery of services to the agency’s customers. Without official time and partnership,

that work would be impossible.

That is why we believe it is important for this Subcommittee—and taxpayers—

to understand fully how SSA managers and union representatives are using their

time, talent, and resources to make SSA a better agency. In fact, this is part of what

led AFGE and SSA to conduct a top-to-bottom, agency-wide evaluation of our partnership in 1997.

Before we turn to the substance of the three Inspector General reports, let me say

a few words about AFGE’s response to the IG’s investigation. The IG reports mention that AFGE initially opposed this investigation of official time and partnership.

That is true. We learned that many rank-and-file employees were, quite frankly,

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afraid to complete the survey forms used by the IG or submit to interviews. An IG

investigation is often focused on alleged employee misconduct and can be the foundation for adverse actions. An IG audit, on the other hand, is generally used to

evaluate the effectiveness of agency programs and operations. It is fair to say that

an IG investigation is perceived by employees and managers alike as far more

threatening and adversarial than the kind of routine audit that the IG conducted

here.

The problem was that many SSA employees (and not just union representatives)

were having a difficult time distinguishing between the more menacing sort of IG

investigation and the more benign audit. It did not help that we uncovered evidence

of performance quotas in the IG’s office requiring a certain number of investigations,

something that we believe has led to overly aggressive investigations in the past.

In addition, we were concerned about four of the questions that the IG proposed

to ask in its surveys and questionnaires. These questions, we felt, were inappropriate, confusing, and simply unnecessary. All of these factors contributed to the initial

delay in completing the survey forms.

However, once we worked through these issues with the IG, AFGE’s National Office sent written instructions to our union representatives urging full cooperation.

We advised our representatives to complete the surveys (the IG agreed that employees would not have to answer the four objectionable questions) and to cooperate

with the audit interviews. A letter from National President Bobby Harnage explaining AFGE’s position in regard to the IG was sent to the Subcommittee Chair back

on November 5, 1997. I trust this clarifies our position on this issue.

Let me now turn to the IG reports that are the subject of today’s hearing.

PARTNERSHIP ACTIVITIES

In October of 1993, President Clinton issued Executive Order 12871, entitled

‘‘Labor-Management Partnerships.’’ This Order ushered in a new era of labor-management relations for the federal government. Federal agencies and labor organizations were challenged to move beyond the hostility and conflict which had defined

labor relations for far too many years. The President directed labor and management to forge true working partnerships focused on improving the performance of

government and the delivery of services to the American people.

Modeled on the best practices of leading-edge private sector companies like Xerox,

Corning Glass, and Saturn, the Executive Order was a true milestone in the history

of labor-management relations. For the first time ever, the nation’s Chief Executive

recognized that there is a meaningful role for federal workers and their unions in

the day-to-day operations of the government. And the President also acknowledged

that government-wide reform efforts would fail without the participation and support of labor unions. Reinvention, restructuring, reorganizing—give it any label you

like—none of these efforts will succeed over the long haul if labor and management

maintain an arms length, adversarial relationship. That is why partnership is not

about ideology or politics. It’s about results.

AFGE and SSA have been working for almost five years to meet the ambitious

goals set by the President. Our partnerships emphasize the common ground between labor and management, the stake that both parties have in making SSA successful. Partnership imposes on both AFGE and SSA a shared obligation to seek

joint solutions to workplace problems in accordance with the common goal of effective, high-quality public service.

Unfortunately, we believe that many of the IG’s recommendations in this area betray a fundamental misunderstanding about partnership and labor management relations.

To begin with, we believe that the IG’s recommendation for a ‘‘uniform definition

of partnership’’ is particularly unwise. Partnerships are many things, but ‘‘uniform’’

is certainly not one of them. Indeed, we have found that no two partnerships in the

federal sector are exactly alike, nor can they be shoe-horned into a once-and-for-all

time definition.

The unique nature of partnerships should come as no surprise since they are

found in scores of different agencies, each with its own particular mission and its

own history of labor-management relations. A definition of partnership that works

for a VA hospital in Des Moines, Iowa will not fit the partnership at Tobyhanna

Army Depot in Pennsylvania. And the local partnership between AFGE and SSA in

Richmond, California is different in many respects from the National-level partnership between AFGE and SSA. Each, however, is a partnership in its own right.

Keep in mind that partnership councils derive their strength—and their unique

identity—from the people who serve on them. Councils are made up of union representatives, employees, and managers who work closely together every day. PartVerDate 11-SEP-98 16:29 Mar 27, 2000 Jkt 061080 PO 00000 Frm 00293 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 K:\HEARINGS\61080.TXT WAYS3 PsN: WAYS3
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nerships can vary in interesting and important ways depending on the mission and

culture of an agency, the understandings and expectations of the men and women

who make up the council, or the level at which the partnership exists. Trying to

capture such a rich and varied tapestry through the one, true ‘‘uniform’’ definition

of partnership is really a search for fool’s gold.

That does not mean partnerships are without identifiable shape or character.

Good partnerships have many common elements. Again and again we find that effective partnerships, no matter the agency, are based on trust, mutual respect, open

and honest communications, shared responsibility, and top-level commitment from

labor and management. But partnership is just a term—a vivid term, to be sure—

that has become widely used to describe efforts by labor and management to build

constructive, cooperative relationships and to do business in a new way. Different

terms have been used in other industries and by other organizations to describe the

same kind of relationship.

For example, at Hennipin Steel Works, management and the Steelworkers Union

created something they called the ‘‘New Work System.’’ The UAW and General Motors formed labor-management ‘‘Quality Networks.’’ Well before Executive Order

12871 was signed by President Clinton, AFGE and the Department of Labor dubbed

their new working relationship ‘‘Employee Involvement and Quality Improvement.’’’

In none of these cases—and in no workplace or organization we know of—did labor

and management try to come up with a uniform definition of their cooperative relationship. It’s a little like trying to define a good marriage: a single definition doesn’t

begin to do justice to the complex, special nature of the institution.

While a precise definition of partnership is neither possible nor desirable, there

is no question that SSA and AFGE need to have a common understanding of the

goals they want to reach in partnership and how they’re going to get there. Coming

to terms with the purpose and scope of partnership—rather than defining it in a

narrow, prescriptive way—is the approach commonly taken by labor and management in both the private and public sectors when they form any kind of cooperative

venture.

The parties will typically develop a joint vision statement or draft a set of broad

guiding principles or, as AFGE and SSA have done here, develop a written partnership agreement which sets out the essential elements of their new relationship. This

approach has proven far more useful than attempting a single definition under

which one would lump the assorted local, regional, and national partnerships typically seen with large employers like SSA.

The IG also missed the mark in its treatment of interest-based bargaining. The

IG says that it would ‘‘not necessarily’’ include interest-based bargaining as a partnership activity because ‘‘it is a problem-solving process or technique that is used

in making group decisions and does not qualify as an activity in and of itself.’’ If

there is a meaningful distinction between a partnership ‘‘process or technique’’ and

a partnership ‘‘activity,’’ it’s not at all clear from the report. But that aside, does

the IG really want to go on record as saying that interest-based bargaining is not

a partnership activity? If so, the IG will stand alone in that flawed judgement.

Interest-based bargaining is a non-adversarial, problem-solving approach to negotiations designed to allow labor and management to bargain more effectively. By focusing on mutual interests, not inflexible positions, participants learn how to craft

contract language that all parties accept and support. This approach to bargaining

helps labor and management develop a working relationship based on shared goals.

That is precisely why the President’s Executive Order on labor-management partnerships directed federal agencies to provide training in ‘‘consensual methods of dispute resolution, such as alternative dispute resolution techniques and interest based

bargaining approaches.’’ EO 12871, Section 2(c). And that is why agencies with

labor-management responsibilities like the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) and the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) provide extensive

training in interest-based bargaining as part of an overall strategy to promote and

develop partnerships across government.

The IG is also critical of the ‘‘diverse grouping of activities’’ that SSA and AFGE

consider partnership activities, a diversity attributed to the lack of a definition for

partnership. We do not agree.

The Executive Order requires agencies to ‘‘involve employees and their union representatives as full partners to identify problems and craft solutions to better serve

the agency’s customers and mission.’’ Meeting this ambitious goal should lead, as

it has with SSA and AFGE, to a wide range of activities properly designated as

partnership activities. This is all part of doing business in a new way, where labor

and management spend less time handling grievances and more time trying to improve quality, efficiency, and customer service.

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Does that mean some blurring of the sharp lines that once divided purely representational activities from agency business? Sure. But that is not surprising when

an agency is involving the union—and employees designated by the union—in its

day-to-day operations and planning as never before. Insisting on rigid and formal

definitions misses both the letter and the spirit of the Executive Order.

The IG also reports that it ‘‘could not conclude that a connection existed between

partnership and the reduction in the number of grievances and unfair labor practice

filings.’’ Of all the conclusions reached by the IG, this is the most troubling because

it exhibits an almost wilful disregard of the facts. And what are some of the important facts?

FACT: In the seven years prior to the Executive Order, unfair labor practice

charges in the federal sector rose steadily each year from around 5200 in 1986 to

almost 9000 in 1992. The Executive Order was signed in October 1993. In 1994, the

first full year of implementation, ULPs dropped 13%. In 1995, the decline was even

sharper, falling 17%. All in all, there has been a 39% reduction government-wide

in the filing of ULPs since 1993.

FACT: 76% of the respondents to a government-wide survey of labor and management conducted by the National Partnership Council in 1996 reported that partnership had resulted in a reduction in labor-management litigation. Almost exactly the

same percentage reported a reduction in 1995.

FACT: In the Council’s 1997 government-wide survey of labor and management,

conducted by Professors Merrick Masters and Robert Albright, only 35.7% of the respondents described the past climate between labor and management as ‘‘cooperative.’’ When asked to characterize the labor relations climate today, almost twice as

many (67.4%) said that it was cooperative. Building on these findings, Masters and

Albright found a definitive correlation between an improved labor relations climate

and reduced grievance rates. They also found a correlation between harmonious

labor relations and improvements in productivity, product quality, and customer

service.

There are many examples in agencies throughout the government where ULPs

and grievances were once filed with depressing regularity but where litigation and

conflict dropped dramatically once the parties developed a working partnership.

There is a strong connection between cooperative labor management relations and

the kind of reduction in ULPs, grievances, and other forms of labor-management

conflict that we’ve achieved at SSA. This connection is supported by hard evidence,

hard-earned experience, and plain old common sense.

OFFICIAL TIME

As this Committee is well aware, Congress concluded two decades ago that the

public interest is served when federal workers, acting through labor unions they

elect democratically, have the right to bargain with management over their conditions of employment. The Federal Sector Labor-Management Relations Statute,

passed in 1978, expressly states that the union’s role as a workplace representative

‘‘contributes to the effective conduct of public business’’ and ‘‘facilitates and encourages the amicable settlement of disputes.’’ This is as true today as it was 20 years

ago.

This Subcommittee also knows that a federal sector labor organization acts as the

exclusive representative for all employees in the bargaining unit, whether or not

those employees join the union. For example, AFGE is the exclusive representative

for all 50,000 bargaining unit employees at SSA, and we are responsible for representing their interests without regard to membership in AFGE. However, the statute prohibits AFGE and other federal employee unions from charging fees to nonmembers for the services we are obligated by law to provide.

In other words, non-members get a free ride; they contribute not a dime to the

union yet they benefit directly from the hard-fought bargaining gains and skilled

representation that the union must provide to members and non-members equally.

This differs significantly from the labor-management relations system in the private

sector. Unlike federal sector unions, unions in the private sector can and do negotiate contracts that require non-members to contribute a fair-share payment or fee

to the union for the services and representation they receive.

In recognition of the representational burdens placed on federal employee unions

by this free-rider system, Congress allowed labor to negotiate with management for

official time. This is not a give-away nor is it a taxpayer ‘‘subsidy.’’ Rather, it is a

fair trade-off for the sweeping representational obligations imposed on unions by

law.

Official time has been commonplace in the federal sector since the early 1960s.

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lowed for union representatives either by Executive Order or statute. Since the Civil

Service Reform Act was enacted in 1978, official time is authorized for such activities as collective bargaining, conducting and receiving training, handling employee

grievances, and working with management to improve the delivery of services. Congress recognized that these activities contribute to a productive and stable working

environment, and that agencies derive substantial benefits from the union’s use of

official time. That is why union representatives are considered to be performing the

work of the agency when they are authorized to use official time.

Official time can be used only for those purposes permitted by law. Moreover,

labor and management must negotiate the amount of official time that can be used

by union representatives, and that amount must be ‘‘reasonable, necessary, and in

the public interest.’’ 5 U.S.C. Section 7131(d)(2). Union representatives are also prohibited from using official time for any internal union business. This means that

representatives cannot use official time to organize workers, solicit new members,

campaign for office, or conduct union elections. We are also forbidden to use official

time for partisan political activities.

Official time is not unique to the federal government. In testimony to this Subcommittee in June 1996, the GAO reported that 7 of the 10 private sector contracts

it reviewed provided for ‘‘company employees, acting as union representatives, to

perform certain union functions in addition to their company duties, at the expense

of the employer.’’ GAO also reviewed BNA’s Basic Patterns of Union Contracts and

testified that ‘‘over 50% of the 400 labor contracts guaranteed pay’’ to employees engaged in representational activity on company time.

Private industry has known for years that effective working relations between

labor and management makes companies more competitive and improves the bottom

line. The same is true in the federal sector. In an era of downsizing and tight budgets, it is essential for labor and management to develop a stable and productive

working relationship. Official time is a tool that makes such a relationship possible.

With the growth of labor-management partnership, the nature of official time use

has changed dramatically. At SSA, AFGE union representatives spend more time

than ever before working side-by-side with management to help redesign antiquated

work systems, solve workplace problems, and improve the delivery of customer service. Official time has become an essential mechanism for creating an agency that

works better, smarter, and more effectively for the American taxpayer. Here are just

a few examples of what I mean:

AFGE and SSA worked together to reengineer the agency’s toll-free customer

service line. As you know, this is the world’s most heavily-used 800 number. Our

efforts have paid off for the taxpayer as the SSA toll-free line was rated the best

in the world by Dalbar Financial Services, the largest financial news publisher in

North America. In topping Dalbar’s rankings, SSA beat out such top-flight companies as Federal Express, LL Bean, Disney, and Nordstrom.

A partnership team in Joplin, Missouri developed a ‘‘one-stop-shopping’’ process

for handling disability complaints. Together, SSA and AFGE reduced the number

of interview steps, cut the number of employees involved in the interview, and cut

the time it takes to schedule an appointment from 15 days down to one.

AFGE and SSA jointly developed something called the Integrated Service Project.

This initiative was designed to provide assistance to field offices when service delivery is affected by natural disaster, workload increases, or technology changes. As

part of this effort we established a special work unit at the Birmingham PSC to

handle retirement, survivor, disability, and health insurance claims. This unit was

also trained to help with continuing disability reviews and other post-entitlement

work. We are looking at other ways to streamline field office and PSC workloads.

AFGE and SSA continue to work in partnership on the Disability Process Redesign Team (DPRT). This is a long-term partnership effort which began in 1994. Our

objective is to improve quality and productivity, reduce the time it takes to process

disability claims, and cut costs. At present there are eight major initiatives at various stages of development but we have already reduced disability backlogs and

moved headquarters staff into direct service positions.

With the growth of partnership and a more productive relationship between SSA

and AFGE, we are saving millions of taxpayer dollars once spent on litigation and

third-party appeals. Arbitration cases have dropped 32% from 488 in 1993 to 331

in 1996; unfair labor practice charges fell 56%, from 382 in 1993 to 168 in 1996;

and grievances dropped 48% from a high of 465 in 1994 to 244 in 1996. The reduction in ULPs alone is saving SSA millions of dollars every year.

Finally, AFGE and SSA are keeping their eyes on the prize. Litigation and labormanagement conflict have fallen dramatically since 1993, while the amount of time

spent by AFGE helping to improve the operations of SSA is at an all-time high.

Through our Evaluation of Partnership, we found that the number of agreements

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negotiated by AFGE and SSA that address work process and customer service is up

almost 40% since 1993. Indeed, we discovered that more time is spent by AFGE and

SSA dealing with customer service than any other single issue. In total, SSA and

AFGE are working on over 1,500 separate partnership initiatives and projects at all

levels of the agency to create an agency that works better and costs less.

There is no question that front-line involvement by AFGE union representatives

is paying big dividends to SSA’s customers in terms of better service and real cost

savings. Gains in quality, productivity, and efficiency—achievements being duplicated by labor and management all across government—simply would not have been

possible without the reasonable and judicious use of official time.

Like other unionized federal agencies, SSA and AFGE have negotiated a collective

bargaining agreement that sets out basic rules for official time. The contract covers

issues like the amount of time authorized for union representatives and the process

for handling official time requests.

Is this a perfect system? Of course not. AFGE has represented employees at the

Social Security Administration for over 30 years and we are continually working

with SSA to refine and improve all aspects of our working relationship. Official time

procedures are no exception. But one thing I can say with confidence is that the system we have negotiated fairly and effectively balances the statutory representational obligations of the union with the work requirements of SSA and its managers.

The IG has made a number of specific recommendations on official time. Some

make sense, others do not. I’d like to address each of the IG’s recommendations in

detail:

Recommendation 1: Maintain Accurate, Current Lists of Union Representatives

We agree completely with the IG that the agency should have accurate and upto-date lists of AFGE union representatives. In fact, our collective bargaining agreement with SSA obligates AFGE to provide such information to the agency. We have

lived up to our obligations in the past and we will continue to do so in the future.

We will be happy to work with the agency to ensure that the written notifications

provided by AFGE reach the managers who need such information.

Recommendation 2: Improve Management Oversight To Help Determine Whether Official Time Is Used Appropriately

We agree that union representatives should live up to the arrangements we have

negotiated with SSA, and should complete the necessary forms when requesting official time. AFGE and SSA believe that these forms, which use official time codes and

sub-codes or provide for a general description of the nature of the representational

activity, provide all the information that managers need to determine whether or

not to approve a request for official time. The procedures that we have negotiated

protect the union’s right to engage in representational activities free from excessive

interference yet meet the agency’s need to effectively and efficiently manage its resources.

These procedures also safeguard the statutory rights of employees. When the

union requests official time to meet with an employee to discuss a workplace issue,

let’s say a disciplinary situation, their conversation and the employee’s identity is

confidential. The FLRA has ruled that such conversations constitute protected activity under the Labor-Management Relations Statute, and that employees must be

free to make full and frank disclosures to their representatives. See Long Beach

Naval Shipyard and FEMTC, 44 FLRA 1021 (1992); Department of Treasury, Customs Service and NTEU, 38 FLRA 1300 (1991). This important right is compromised

by the kind of excessive monitoring of official time suggested by the IG.

More stringent reporting and monitoring requirements are unnecessary and unreasonable. AFGE and SSA have battled over this issue in the past and neither

party wants to reopen those wounds. We have settled on a procedure that is not

only fair to managers and employees, but mindful of the responsibility we both have

to the taxpayer.

Recommendation 3: Monitor The Coding Of Representational Activity To Ensure

That Contractual Limits on Official Time Are Not Exceeded

We agree. AFGE and SSA have negotiated limits on the amount of official time

that can be used by union representatives depending on where they work and what

position they hold with the union. If a representative exceeds a contractual cap on

time, then no more time should be authorized. AFGE will live up to the agreements

we’ve made, it’s as simple as that. We also expect that the agency’s new automated

Official Time Tracking System (OUTTS) will help both parties ensure that contractual limits are not exceeded.

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Recommendation 4: Improve Procedures To Deal with Allegations of Official Time

Abuse

This is one we just don’t get. The IG has offered absolutely no evidence of abuse.

What we have in place of facts is an assertion from the IG that ‘‘some managers

suspected abuse of official time.’’ Well, some Americans suspect that Oswald didn’t

act alone. Others suspect that accounts of alien abductions are true. We trust this

Subcommittee is more interested in facts than vague notions or unreported suspicions.

Article 30, Section 3 of the parties’ collective bargaining agreement provides a

clear procedure to deal with allegations of official time abuse. AFGE agreed to this

article and we will be happy to abide by its requirements. That’s a fact. The union

will promptly deal with any allegations that we receive. We have no interest in letting a few renegade bad actors soil the good reputations of all the hard-working,

responsible union representatives in SSA. That’s another fact.

Finally, there is no evidence that the current mechanism for handling allegations

of abuse is failing in any way. If there is evidence of abuse, all that a manager has

to do is report it rather than silently harbor his or her ‘‘suspicions.’’ I can promise

you that AFGE and SSA will deal with the allegations promptly and decisively. And

if you have any evidence of official time problems, Mr. Chairman, AFGE would be

happy to work with you to get those problems resolved.

Recommendations 5–9

We can agree to work with SSA on all of these recommendations.

Recommendation 10: Evaluate The Benefits And Disadvantages Of Official Time

This recommendation is completely unnecessary. Official time is not some new

foreign concept foisted on the government by President Clinton. The right of unions

to use official time to fulfill statutory responsibilities is well into its fourth decade.

As far back as 1978, Congress strongly affirmed that federal employee unions and

collective bargaining are in the public interest. The calculation of ‘‘costs and benefits’’ that the IG recommends has already been done under the past eight presidents

and by scores of Congressional legislators since the early 1960s.

In any case, official time is already subjected to regular and rigorous cost-benefit

analysis. Remember, labor and management must negotiate for official time. The

law does not entitle a union representative to use official time without regard to

the agency’s needs and the requirements of the agency’s work. The amount, the allocation, and the scheduling of official time are all considered against a tough standard: does it interfere with the accomplishment of the agency’s work? If it does, the

law is clear that the agency’s work will take precedence. In this environment, the

kind of cost-benefit analysis recommended by the IG is superfluous.

CONCLUSION

I began my statement today, Mr. Chairman, by describing how proud I am of

AFGE’s commitment to work with SSA every day to deliver better service to the

agency’s customers. We are convinced that the close working partnership we have

forged with SSA has brought about real gains for the millions of citizens who lives

are affected by the work we do.

That is why we are so disappointed by the vicious anti-union rhetoric that preceded AFGE’s appearance today. Your overheated statement to the press contains

so many distortions and exaggerations that we wonder why you bothered to hold

a hearing at all. To take only the most egregious example, your chart on ‘‘union activity’’ ends in 1996. You conveniently left off the figures for 1997 which show that

official time expenses at SSA are actually going down, last year by nearly 20%. In

true Alice-in-Wonderland fashion, you have declared a verdict long before the case

was heard.

That is a shame, Mr. Chairman. It is a shame that anti-union bias has left you

blind to all that AFGE has done at SSA to build an agency that the American people can be proud of. It is a shame that you refuse to acknowledge all that is right

about union representatives—almost all of them volunteers—who serve their government and the public with honor and pride. And it is a shame, Mr. Chairman,

that you have chosen to ignore the thousands of managers, employees, and union

representatives at SSA who are committed to finding new and more productive ways

of doing business. When the lights are off and these hearings are over, you can rest

assured that AFGE and SSA will go back to the difficult yet critical task of building

a lasting and successful partnership.

f

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Chairman BUNNING. Well, we’re glad to ask you some questions

about it.

Do you support union officials threatening anybody? Their managers?

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. Threatening anybody? Of course not. I have

no indication that——

Chairman BUNNING. Do you take action when you find it, as a

union?

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. Of course I would take action if a union official threatened another person.

Chairman BUNNING. I see. Do you? Or did you?

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. The situation in Texas, in Waco, we OK a

dispute. Yes, certainly, when I got wind of that situation, I called

the local president, and the local president was present when the

incident occurred, and she disputed what your witness testified to

yesterday. I wasn’t there. So I can’t——

Chairman BUNNING. You’re accusing the witness of perjury then?

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. No. I wasn’t there, Congressman. I’m saying

that the local president informed me that——

Chairman BUNNING. She’s accusing the witness of perjury? In

other words, we can call her——

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. Well, she informed me before the testimony,

and she didn’t say anything about perjury.

Chairman BUNNING. I’m going to let Mr. Christensen inquire.

Oh, he’s not here? Yes, he is. Go ahead.

Mr. CHRISTENSEN. Mr. Skwierczynski——

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. Skwierczynski.

Mr. CHRISTENSEN. Skwierczynski; is that right?

You know, I find it interesting how you continue to defend the

idea of Christmas shopping with your union activities. I mean, it’s

like maybe my colleagues and I should allow our staffs to go out

at the taxpayers’ expense and Christmas shop on the taxpayers’

time. You know, what would be your definition of reasonable, necessary, and in the public interest, in terms of activities? Would

working at Camden Yards be reasonable and necessary? Would

campaign activities be reasonable and necessary? How do you justify any of those activities to the American taxpayer in light of the

fact that the Social Security Administration is to serve the American taxpayer, not to serve the employees?

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. Well, I guess there’s three parts to that. The

first part, with regard to the Christmas leave, I’ll remind you that

President Reagan gave Federal employees eight hours on a few occasions off on Christmas Eve. So it’s not unprecedented that even

our Presidents provide time off for dedicated public servants

around the Christmas holidays. So I don’t think it’s unusual that

managers in a region would provide a similar kind of benefit that

many of our Presidents—Reagan, Nixon, Johnson—many of our

Presidents through history have provided around the holiday season time off for public servants in appreciation for their dedicated

service throughout the year. And that’s what they were doing in

the Boston region.

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Now the second part of your question about union officials, allegations that union officials work in Camden Yards, if that is correct, it’s reprehensible conduct, and I would oppose it. I would

favor—you know, if I was in charge of that situation for the union,

which I’m not, I would engage in an investigation of that kind of

conduct.

And the third question I believe was another abusive situation.

I would do the same. I’m not in favor of abuse at all.

Mr. CHRISTENSEN. But you are in favor of the Christmas shopping? You think that was a legitimate time-off excuse that the

American taxpayer should be responsible for?

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. As I testified, it was given a name of Christmas shopping, but the intent of it was to reward employees for

dedicated service, just as Presidents have consistently done

through the years.

Mr. CHRISTENSEN. Well, reclaiming my time, rewarding dedicated Social Security workers to go to church as time off, that is

a reasonable use of taxpayers’ dollars?

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. They were given two hours off as a reward

for their services. They could do whatever they want with the time.

Mr. CHRISTENSEN. But you consider that a reasonable time

off——

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. Yes.

Mr. CHRISTENSEN [continuing]. Expenditure, to go to church?

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. Two hours to do whatever they wished as a

reward for dedicated service, I think that’s very reasonable. If

you’re dealing with GS–5 clericals, you’re talking about $20 in

terms of salary there. I think that’s a reasonable—an equivalent to

the kind of gifts in the private sector that private sector workers

provide for their employees.

Mr. CHRISTENSEN. Well, there’s a difference between the taxpayers’ dollars and private sector work. When you’re working with

the taxpayers’ dollars, we try to be more frugal and more careful

in how we expend those dollars, in light of the fact that the Social

Security Trust Fund is continually looking at a shortfall.

One of the things that I think this Subcommittee ought to do,

Mr. Chairman, is add up the amount of money that has been lost

in this area and maybe come up with an amendment that could be

put together for the appropriators, and we could save the American

taxpayers some money in this area. Or put an amendment on that

would take the money from this particular area, from the appropriations, and add back into the Trust Fund. Because I’m hearing

from this gentleman that this is a legitimate use of the taxpayers’

dollars, and in 1998 we’re still going to see this kind of waste,

fraud, and abuse in the area. So I’d like to suggest to the Chairman

that we try to correct it this year yet somehow.

Chairman BUNNING. We tried to correct it 2 years ago, and were

able to see that the money wasn’t spent out of the Trust Fund, but

a general fund appropriation replacing the Trust Fund money, so

that it wouldn’t be used, and Representative Porter assisted us in

that.

Mr. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you.

Chairman BUNNING. OK.

Mr. Hayworth.

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Mr. HAYWORTH. I thank the Chairman. Thank you, sir, for coming to testify this morning.

You’ve offered a rather outspoken and unapologetic assessment

of your perception that your workers have done exemplary jobs

with regard to servicing taxpayers through the Social Security Administration. If that is the case, sir, why did the union tell many

managers, when they received inquiries from the Office of the Inspector General, that they should not answer the survey or the

questions of the Inspector General?

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. We did cooperate with the Inspector General on the initial distribution of the audit——

Mr. HAYWORTH. Distributing the audit is one thing. I’m asking

specifically, why the union instructed its membership not to answer the questions?

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. Well, we instructed them to answer the

questions. Originally, we instructed them not to answer the questions—we advised them; we didn’t instruct them—we advised them

not to answer the questions. And a few months later, we advised

them to answer the questions.

Now the reason we advised them not to answer the questions

originally was because the Inspector General had decided that,

rather than meeting with our national office—and our national

president is here today, Bobby Harnage—rather than meeting with

his predecessor, John Sturdivant, that they decided that they

would go to local Social Security offices and send draft—and discuss draft questions on the questionnaire with local union officials.

And we insisted—Mr. Sturdivant wrote Mr. Williams, the IG,

and said, you know, that’s not proper procedure; he should be dealing with us. At the same time, we discovered that the OIG had established quotas for disciplining and——

Mr. HAYWORTH. If you’d yield, do you——

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI [continuing]. Finding fraudulent activity——

Mr. HAYWORTH. I want to go back to the verbiage you characterized from the national president. You told the Inspector General

and the other officers in the Social Security Administration that it’s

not proper procedure to directly inquire of managers, that they

should deal with you first with basic questions on a basic responsibility of duty, that their first allegiance is to the union, instead

of the United States of America’s Government, in whom themselves—with whom they find themselves employed?

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. Well, we didn’t tell managers to do anything. I mean, if I told a manager to do something, that’s like——

Mr. HAYWORTH. No, no, what I said was——

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. That doesn’t mean he’s going to do anything. What I was saying is that we instructed our reps originally

not to cooperate with the—not to answer the questions. Later on,

after Mr. Sturdivant was able to meet with Mr. Williams and clarify some of the aspects of the questionnaire that was troubling him,

we sent instructions to our union reps to cooperate, and they did.

Mr. HAYWORTH. When you were hired by the SSA, what job were

you hired to do, sir?

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. I’m sorry; I was a claims rep.

Mr. HAYWORTH. When was the last time you did that job?

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. In 1983.

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Mr. HAYWORTH. 1983.

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. I’ve been president of the national council

since that time.

Mr HAYWORTH. And that was how many years ago?

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. Fifteen.

Mr. HAYWORTH. So that was the last time you answered an 800

number call?

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. We didn’t have an 800 number then, sir.

Mr. HAYWORTH. OK. When was the last time you took a claim?

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. Around that time—1982.

Mr. HAYWORTH. And authorized a benefit?

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. 1982.

Mr. HAYWORTH. OK. So even in the midst dramatic, traumatic

situations such as the tragedy at Oklahoma City, rather than stepping in to immediately help with clients and deal with workloads,

your primary responsibility was to the union.

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. Sir, I’m a national president of a council

that represents 28,000 people.

Mr. HAYWORTH. Are you also employed by the Social Security Administration?

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. Yes, I am, and I work 70 to 80 hours a

week, sir.

Mr. HAYWORTH. And in a situation of severe trauma, where

records had to be restored, where lines of communication had to be

opened, where you were hired to do a job to help advance the role

of the Government, that was secondary to your role with the union,

even in the national trauma such as Oklahoma City.

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. My role during the national trauma of Oklahoma City was to provide counsel and sustenance to the employees

who were the survivors of that tragedy, and to ensure that those

deaths of 16 Social Security employees would not occur again. That

was my role, and I think that that is a honorable role.

Mr. HAYWORTH. Well, I think it is honorable, too, to try and deal

with trauma. The question becomes, even in the midst of that, is

the responsibility not then first to the Federal Government and

those employees and the legacy of the work they would do on behalf of the American taxpayers? It’s just very—here.

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. That is my responsibility, and I believe I

fulfilled it. I spent countless hours counseling those employees and

attempting to ensure that that type of tragedy does not occur

again, and I think the employees appreciate that.

Mr. HAYWORTH. One final question, sir. Since you’re proud of the

70 to 80 hours you work a week, in your words, would you be willing to submit your personal financial statements to our Subcommittee and for our record?

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. I don’t see a need for that. Why are you asking for my financial statements?

Mr. HAYWORTH. Well, I just, again——

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. I’ll tell you what I make. I’m a GS–11, Step

10. I’ve been a Social Security employee for 25 years. The union

gives me a salary of $400 a month. That’s it, man. I don’t get any

overtime. You know, I’m not a rich guy.

Mr. HAYWORTH. And with the union activities, there’s no other

compensation, nor do you pursue any other lines of work.

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Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. I have no other job.

Mr. HAYWORTH. OK; thank you, sir.

Chairman BUNNING. Kenny.

Mr. HULSHOF. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Sir, do you believe this is a political witch hunt?

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. Yes, I do. It’s very—and I will expand on

that. You have in your hearing focus——

Mr. HULSHOF. Do you think—excuse me. Do you think—are

you——

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI [continuing]. It says you’re focusing on nonAgency activities at SSA. I have heard nothing except the union

being addressed at this hearing.

Mr. HULSHOF. Have you actually read the Inspector General’s report?

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. Yes, I have.

Mr. HULSHOF. Cover-to-cover?

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. Yes, I have.

Mr. HULSHOF. So then you know that on page 3 it talks about the official time activities at a cost of $14.7 million and suspected—

suspected—I’m not saying it actually occurred, but suspected abuse

of 25 percent. I mean what’s a couple of——

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. I read the report. Yes, I read that.

Mr. HULSHOF. What’s a couple of million, right, sir?

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. No; that’s obviously not what I think.

Mr. HULSHOF. Is it wrong for the American taxpayer to know

what typical union activities and what portion of a representative’s

official time is spent on these activities? Do you think the American public has a right to know or not?

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. I didn’t say the American public didn’t have

a right to know.

Mr. HULSHOF. Well, I’m asking you the question now. Do you

think that the American public has a right to know? Yes or no.

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. I think the American public has the right to

know about how all their tax dollars are spent. Yes, I do.

Mr. HULSHOF. Is it just coincidence that we found yesterday

three representatives that were here who testified to specific

abuses? Did we just happen to find those rare instances of abuse?

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. Yes. I think you found rare instances of alleged abuse, and in reading the—I wasn’t here for the hearings—

but in reading and hearing reports about the testimony, it appeared it wasn’t specific. It’s very hard for me to pin down these

kinds of allegations that aren’t—where no names are mentioned

and no specific situations are mentioned.

Mr. HULSHOF. Perhaps the reason——

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. These are general allegations, and some of

them by the union dissident were things that he heard in the office. He didn’t see anyone’s official time reports. He just heard

something in the office, and certainly I’d like to investigate that,

but, you know, I have my skepticism about the validity of those allegations.

Mr. HULSHOF. So then you’re saying that based on—were you

here, by the way, physically present to the witnesses?

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. No.

Mr. HULSHOF. OK.

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Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. I was involved in a 3-day health and safety

conference, attempting to deal with severe health and safety problems that occur in Social Security offices. For example——

Mr. HULSHOF. Fine. I’m not questioning where you were, sir, but

I’m saying—and be careful with this——

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. Well, you asked me if I was here.

Mr. HULSHOF. Excuse me. This is my time. My question is—and

be careful, as you are under oath—you aren’t suggesting that witnesses who’ve come before this hearing in previous days were committing perjury.

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. My testimony was that their allegations

were general, and I could not discern whether they were valid or

not just on the basis of their allegations. And, again, I wasn’t here;

it’s all what I read and heard about them.

Mr. HULSHOF. One of the allegations was from a gentleman, that

he was seeking higher office in the union, running on a reform

platform, and another representative came to him and said, ‘‘If you

would withdraw your candidacy, we can assure you that you will

have 100 percent official time. You will never have to answer an

800 number or provide a benefit or take another claim.’’ Do you

think that’s appropriate?

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. No, it isn’t, if that occurred. I don’t know

that it occurred.

Mr. HULSHOF. You suggest, sir, that in private industry—that if

you are in private industry you would get a Christmas turkey or

that you would get time off for Christmas shopping. The fact is, sir,

you are not in private industry, are you?

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. No, but I don’t think our employees should

be treated as stepchildren just because they’re Federal employees.

I think our employees do fine work in Social Security.

Mr. HULSHOF. So do we, for the most part. But in opposition to

your position that you think that this is simply a political witch

hunt, it is our duty under the Constitution to make sure that we

have oversight over inappropriate uses of political money—of taxpayer money. And we have a report from the Inspector General,

who has no ax to grind, that suggests up to 25 percent abuse, $14.7

million of official time. I think it’s our duty to at least ask questions, and I’m sorry that you think that this is some political witch

hunt to further some political advantage.

The fact is—and let me ask you this question. Is it just the

AFGE employees through SSA that get this specific time around

Christmas, or do other employees, like IRS and HHS? Do you happen to know that answer?

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. I have no knowledge of that, other than that

when the President provides Federal workers with time, it’s across

the board.

Mr. HULSHOF. The fact is that during the challenge in the matter

of the Social Security Administration in the Boston region and

Local 1164 of AFGE, it was the position of the union that it was,

quote, ‘‘vindictive and a reprisal for the union’s action challenging

the termination in one office’’—talking about Christmas leave. That

was the union’s official position, was it not? That it was vindictive

to terminate this practice of a 20-year duration that promotes emVerDate 11-SEP-98 16:29 Mar 27, 2000 Jkt 061080 PO 00000 Frm 00304 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 K:\HEARINGS\61080.TXT WAYS3 PsN: WAYS3
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ployee morale—vindictive and a reprisal to take away Christmas

shopping time from AFGE employees at SSA.

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. The reason that language is used is because

the Agency selected one office in which to remove the benefit, rather than all the offices, so we felt that because they targeted one office that they did it in a vindictive fashion.

Mr. HULSHOF. My time has expired. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman BUNNING. Mr. Collins will inquire.

Mr. COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Sir, I’m not even going to try to pronounce your name.

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. Skwierczynski.

Mr. COLLINS. I’ll call you Mr. President, since you’re president of

the union.

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. That’s good. [Laughter.] I like it.

Mr. COLLINS. That ought to make you feel good. You probably

were listening when I made my remarks to Mr. Barnes——

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. Yes; I was.

Mr. COLLINS [continuing]. Concerning my operation and the industry that I work in and how we have a slogan for slack and negligence. In my own operation, which is a small business, just a family-run business, there’s a sign that sits on the front of my desk

that says, ‘‘The buck stops here.’’ I believe that was a slogan by a

former President of the United States, Harry S Truman. Sir, to

me—Mr. President—the buck stops with the Social Security Administration and the executive branch of this Government.

The reports show, and even some of your own comments reflect,

that there’s a lot of slack, a lot of negligence, a lot of weakness

within the Social Security Administration. I believe that labor organized early in this century due to the abuse of management. Is that

not true?

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. Yes.

Mr. COLLINS. You know, as I listen to you talk about how you

are continuously adding to your ranks and organizing, it appears

that you’re organizing to abuse—to abuse the system and to take

advantage of management that is slack, negligent, and weak. The

problem in the area of the activities of both the union and management is costing each and every working person in this country part

of their hard-earned money. That includes the employees of the Social Security Administration.

I respectfully request that you turn your defensive attitude in defending the union and that you aggressively work and cooperate

with management in servicing the needs of the people of this country, whether that be through a partnership or team work or whatever you want to call it is fine. Partnerships work and teams work

between organized labor and management in the private sector. It

will work in this area, too, but the defensive position and attitude

that you have, the weakness that they possess, will never allow it

to work.

Thank you for coming today.

Chairman BUNNING. Mr. Weller. He’s not here? Mr. Portman.

Mr. PORTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Mr.

Skwierczynski, thank you for being here today. We’ve heard a lot

of troubling information in the last 2 days of hearings, and you

may or may not have been here yesterday when I objected to one

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of your senior officials calling this political theater. Today we’ve

elevated it to a political witch hunt.

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. That wasn’t my word.

Mr. PORTMAN. Well, you were asked by Mr. Hulshof whether you

thought this was a political witch hunt, and I think the witness

nodded.

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. Yes; I think it is, but it wasn’t my word.

That’s all I’m saying.

Mr. PORTMAN. I’m very troubled by that because, although I don’t

see it in my colleagues from the other side of the aisle here, the

approach is clearly bipartisan. This is a bipartisan Subcommittee.

We’re responding to a report from the Inspector General. Let’s just

go over those data again—and you said you’ve read it cover-tocover, and I’m glad you have. I hope some of your other colleagues

have, because there are some serious allegations there. We’ve had

a series of findings from the IG.

The background is that when GAO looked at union activity in 1993, they found about $6 million of taxpayer money being spent

per year. The IG looked at it in 1996. They found $14.7 million,

which is a 145 percent increase.

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. Yes.

Mr. PORTMAN. The work force, of course, increased a little less

than 1 percent during that period, so basically a flat work force;

an 81 percent increase in the number of full-time union reps during

that time period—again, a flat work force; and a 53 percent increase in the number of union related hours. Then, in that context,

the IG findings come to us saying that they can’t verify—the IG

cannot verify the hours, cost, dedicated union activities because it’s

just not out there; the SSA information is unreliable.

Mr. Hulshof talked about a specific reference to the fact that

there was a considerable amount—maybe a quarter of the full-time

union activity work was not really union activity. One data piece

that I thought was particularly troubling was that 25 percent of

the managers themselves suspect abuse of time on union activities,

and a number of them—20 percent of them—said they didn’t do

anything about it. Why? Because they said nobody cared.

So, you may view this as a political witch hunt or political theater, but I think it’s irresponsible for us not to get into this issue

and to begin to get at the truth and put in place accountability

measures that work. A quarter of the SSA managers suspect abuse.

The supervisors couldn’t provide documentation to prove who union

reps were and what work was union related. There were inadequate controls to ensure the authorized number of union reps

were not exceeded, and so on and so forth.

You said earlier you’re proud of the dedication of the SSA employees. I think the SSA employees should be commended for their

work, for their hours that they put in, and that we owe it to them

to get at this abuse, to get at the problems, to get at what—as I

said yesterday—what is tarring the whole work force that you represent.

The issue is accountability. The issue is—you mentioned recordkeeping aspects could be somewhat improved. I saw a glimmer of

hope in your testimony when you said that, but what I would say

to you today is that, having heard the sworn testimony from SSA

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employees yesterday, having read the IG’s report, there’s something here. You may view it as a witch hunt, but I think it’s absolutely our responsibility and our prerogative to review these issues

and facts and to begin to address them, and in a constructive way

change them.

Yesterday we heard sworn testimony that despite all the provisions that may be in place to keep such activities from happening,

they are occurring: organizing workers, soliciting new members,

campaigning for office, engaging in partisan political activities. Mr.

Reusing stated, for example, yesterday, that official time had been

used for political activities. He said he had been at training meetings that have been used to rally stewards to support political candidates; union dues had been used for political contributions. He

also cited examples of abuse of official time. We also heard at the

same time about long waiting lines, phones not being answered,

backlogs, and so on, and that puts the recipients, our seniors, at

the short end of the stick.

I guess I have two questions for you. First, could you give us

some specific recommendations, personal recommendations, as to

what we should be doing about these abuses and how we should

put accountability measures in place? And, second, has AFGE ever

disciplined any of its members for engaging in such activities over

the past, let’s say, 5 years?

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. Well, certainly we have abuse provisions in

place in the contract which provide for, if the Agency suspects

abuse, that they communicate with either the local president or the

council president. I’m the council president, and it’s been a rare instance that any situations of abuse have been brought to my attention by SSA management. Our local presidents have had such situations brought to their attention. I know in the local in Baltimore

I’m aware of a situation where somebody’s time was pulled for inappropriate usage. It’s happened elsewhere, also.

I, myself, have had such rare instances where they’ve been

brought to my attention. When I looked into it, we alleviated the

situation without pulling anyone’s time. And some of the allegations we felt were inappropriate allegations, so, you know,

that’s——

Mr. CHRISTENSEN. Would the gentleman yield for just a minute?

Would you tell the Subcommittee what that specific abuse was that

you said you corrected?

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. It had to do with the information that was

reported on the reporting form, whereby individuals—and sometimes it’s a lack of training, where some of our reps think—we have

what we call bank time and non-bank time; it’s two different types

of time. And I advise individuals, when it’s brought to my attention, that they were perhaps reporting under the wrong type of

time, that they should report under the proper time.

Mr. PORTMAN. If you could answer the second question of——

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. Which was?

Mr. PORTMAN. In the past 5 years, have you disciplined any of

your members for engaging in such activities?

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. I haven’t personally because I haven’t had

any of these instances brought to my attention that I felt warranted discipline.

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Mr. PORTMAN. Has the union been engaged in disciplining members?

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. There have been instances of discipline, yes.

Mr. PORTMAN. And what would the discipline be from the union?

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. Reducing time or removing time altogether.

You have to understand, it’s a little dicey issue here in that there

are union officials who are local reps who tend to be appointed and

those people we can pretty much control how much time they get.

But elected officials, on the other hand—members elect them, and

it’s a little more difficult situation in terms of controlling their

time. The way to deal with that is to get them out of office at the

next election——

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI [continuing]. And just like any other union,

you have elections and you have to deal with that process.

Mr. PORTMAN. My time has already been exceeded, and I appreciate the Chairman for indulging me for a minute, but if the testimony you’ve given today in written form does not include specific

recommendations, and if the Subcommittee doesn’t have that, I certainly would be very interested to see what your specific recommendations are as to how to resolve some of these problems, get

more accountability. And you did mention earlier, again, recordkeeping could be improved. I think it could be vastly improved.

Mr. SKWIERCZYNSKI. Would you like me to send something in

writing to the Subcommittee?

Chairman BUNNING. That would be fine.

Mr. PORTMAN. That would be great, and I will get it through the

Subcommittee’s offices.

But that’s what this is all about. It’s trying to clean up a clear

problem identified by the IG.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman BUNNING. Thank you, Mr. Portman. Let me just comment on a couple of things. In June of 1996, we received a report

from the General Accounting Office that there had been an increase of 145 percent in official time and the expenditure of actual

trust fund money on that official time. That was a red flag because

the partnership came in in 1993. Everything had been flat until

1993, and then we saw this major escalation of cost. That was a

red flag.

We asked for the Office of Inspector General to follow up on that

report in 1996, and we said to do it as soon as possible. Well, it’s

1998, and they’ve just finished it. So, I want you to know that this

is our duty and our obligation—when we see red flags come up to

do something about them. It is the duty and obligation of this Subcommittee to oversee the Social Security Administration. You know

that; I know that. I’m not sure that the public knows that.

So the descriptions that you have given of these hearings are incorrect. You’re entitled to your opinion. We can’t do anything about

that; you’re entitled. Anybody is entitled to their own opinion, but

we have an obligation to the taxpayers to make sure that we look

at that $14-plus million that was being spent, compared to the $6

million that was being spent in 1993.

Thank you for your testimony. Often it is impossible for our Subcommittee to cover everything, every issue we’re interested in.

Therefore, we may be submitting additional questions to you in

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writing for you to answer for the record. We need to protect the integrity of the Social Security system and respect union rights,

while rooting out any abuse in the workplace. Therefore, I will immediately request an in-depth investigation by SSA’s offices of the

Inspector General of the allegations of official time abuse brought

before this Subcommittee in sworn testimony.

I am also considering a number of legislative options—and I’m

glad that Mr. Portman asked for your suggestions because we don’t

have all the answers. You’re on the job; you ought to have some

suggestions for this Subcommittee so that we can narrow whatever

we think might be the gap of abuse.

Over the last 3 years, many dedicated Social Security employees

have voiced their concerns about labor-management relations.

These employees were afraid to speak up, afraid to take action. As

we’ve heard from our witnesses, the threats are real. However, I

continue to urge employees to step forward, share their views and

their solutions, because we’re listening.

I thank the witnesses for their testimony, all the witnesses. This

hearing stands adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 12 p.m., the hearing adjourned subject to the call

of the Chair.]

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