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It may be a little-known federal agency but it plays a key role in protecting federal employee rights, and NTEU is supporting legislation that would protect it.
Established by Congress in 1978, the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) safeguards the federal merit system, preventing political interference in civil service employment and ensuring a non-partisan career federal workforce. The independent agency protects the due process rights of federal employees who believe they were unjustly fired, demoted or discriminated against in the workplace. It oversees federal hiring, employee management and firing, and protects against whistleblower retaliation.
The MSPB is a crucial component that helps ensure a federal workforce where everyone is treated fairly and has the same opportunities, but it is in peril.
The Board is supposed to be led by three bipartisan, presidential-appointed and Senate-confirmed members, but it is down to one member and could soon have none. Mark Robbins, the lone Board member, is a Republican whose seven-year term expired March 1, 2018. He continues to serve in a holdover capacity limited by statute to one year. The MSPB has been without a quorum since January 2017, the longest in MSPB’s 40-year history. After Friday, it could be without any members for the first time ever.
This means long wait times and more uncertainty for federal employees and agencies with pending petitions for review.
House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) and Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) have introduced NTEU-supported legislation that would provide a temporary solution. The MSPB Temporary Term Extension Act (H.R. 1235) would allow a one-time, one-year extension of a current member’s term.
Last month, President Trump renominated three candidates—two Republicans and one Democrat— to the Board who were not confirmed by the Senate before Congress adjourned in December.
In the meantime, the backlog of pending cases awaiting action continues to balloon. As of October 2018, the agency had 1,800 petitions awaiting action from the Board, according to the agency’s website.
“This backlog is untenable and unfair to federal employees who must anxiously endure lengthy wait times to get a decision,” said NTEU National President Tony Reardon. “I applaud Chairman Cummings and Rep. Connolly for their efforts to ensure that the Board is able to function and safeguard employee protections while the Senate considers the nominees.”