TSA screeners could move back to General Schedule
July 7th, 2009 | Transportation Security Administration | Posted by Steve Losey
The House Homeland Security Committee plans to mark up a bill on Thursday that would kill the Transportation Security Administration’s Performance Accountability and Standards System. In its place, HR 1881 would move roughly 45,000 screeners to the General Schedule system most federal employees are currently under.
Unions criticize the PASS pay-for-performance system as unfair, and say it is driving many screeners to leave TSA.
The bill would also grant collective bargaining rights to screeners, also known as transportation security officers. This would likely set off a battle between the American Federation of Government Employees and the National Treasury Employees Union to formally represent TSA. Unions are already jockeying for position to prepare for this vote.
Matt Dennis, a spokesman for Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., said he’s optimistic that the bill will come for a vote before the full House. But Dennis was far from certain, and acknowledged that it’s hard to predict what will happen before Congress takes a recess later this summer. The bill now has no Senate companion.
Tags: General Schedule, PASS, screeners, TSA
CHCOs want new pay scale, better HR staffs
December 3rd, 2008 | HR Management Pay & Benefits | Posted by Gregg Carlstrom
The Partnership for Public Service released a report this morning containing advice for the next president from chief human capital officers. The Partnership surveyed 54 CHCOs, and their deputies, and solicited opinions on several topics: pay scales, telework, and the effectiveness of their HR staffs, to name a few. (The complete report, in PDF form, is here.)
Two of the most interesting conclusions:
First, a clear majority of the respondents favored eliminating the General Schedule pay scale; just 14 percent thought it should be retained:
Second, more than half of the respondents view their human resources staffers largely as “transaction managers,” not trusted business advisors — and those numbers have gotten worse since last year:
The full report is worth a read; it highlights a number of important workforce challenges that the president-elect should confront come Jan. 20.
Tags: CHCOs, General Schedule, Partnership for Public Service, workforce