National Alliance Magazine

CAPITOL NEWS

PRIVATIZATION OF FEDERAL JOBS WRONG APPROACH

The Bush Administration is aggressively pursuing the privatization of nearly 1 million federal jobs. Part of the Administration’s Management Agenda to reform the federal government, the competitive sourcing initiative requires that federal agencies identify at least 15 percent of jobs within the agency that can be considered commercial and eligible for outsourcing. This policy which is based on the absurd proposition that federal jobs must be considered commercial, unless proved otherwise is a wrong-headed approach that is a waste of tax payers’ dollars; disproportionately affects women and minorities; is in danger of lowering national living and labor standards; and threatens homeland security.

At present, the Office of Federal Procurement Policy of the Office of Management and Budget is rewriting Circular A-76, the procedure which governs public-private competition. The rewrite is aimed at encouraging agencies to put more jobs up for competition and making the process more favorable to contractors. At present, approximately $125 billion of federal work is contracted out; often with very little accountability for the contractors. The Bush Administration believes that as much as half of federal work can be contracted out and is working hard to make this a reality.

Unfortunately, this process has many dire consequences. It requires that agencies use their budgets to finance the competition process. This process can take years and cost millions of dollars. It prevents agencies from concentrating on their defined tasks and often agencies hire private companies to conduct these competitions. Meanwhile, federal workers who have no experience in competing for their jobs are fighting for their livelihoods against much more experienced private companies. And, at times, even when they enter a lower bid than the contractor, they lose as was the case in Cleveland where a ten-year $346 million contract was awarded to the private contractor because of an error by the private company conducting the competition process did not show that the federal workers’ bid was $31.8 million lower than the contractor’s. Moreover, rather than compete jobs, federal agencies are directly converting jobs over to private contractors.

This process is having a deleterious affect on federal workers and on American society as a whole. The privatization process risks lowering the standard of living of federal workers who are subject to having their wages and benefits lowered in order to compete for their jobs and livelihoods. Furthermore, agencies such as the Veterans Administration are targeting support jobs for outsourcing. These jobs are held disproportionately by women and minorities. Privatization also risks lowering national labor standards because the contractors are not subject to the civil service protections of federal workers. As economist Max Sawicky of the Economic Policy Institute has noted: “High labor standards in the federal government affect labor standards in the private sector.” If the standards for federal workers are lowered, then national standards are likely to be lowered as well.

Right now, Postal workers are not part of this outsourcing process. However, given the direction of the testimony and comments at the hearings conducted by the President’s Commission on the Postal Service, Postal workers should be alert to the possibility that their jobs might soon be subjected to this outsourcing process.

NAPFE has joined a coalition of the NAACP Federal Sector Task Force and Federal Unions to do all we can to stop this privatization process and ensure that it doesn’t permeate all of the federal government.

Editor: Jacquelyn C. Moore

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