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Washington, D.C.—The head of the largest independent union of federal employees today sent a letter to David Safavian, the new Administrator for the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, seeking a meeting to discuss administration policy and priorities regarding the outsourcing of federal work to private contractors.

In the letter, National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) President Colleen M. Kelley reiterated that the union has serious concerns about the administration's competitive sourcing initiative. She also referenced recent comments by Safavian, reported in the media, that the White House is considering dropping its own ban on "direct conversions" of federal jobs to private contractors.

"I was surprised to see this statement," Kelley said, "based on the administration's previous position that it was the competition itself that created efficiencies."

"NTEU," she said, "strongly believes that federal employees deserve the right to compete for the jobs they hold through public-private competitions and that taxpayers deserve to know that tax dollars are being spent based on fair competitions for government work."

In the administration's May 2003 rewrite of Circular A-76, which governs the competition for federal work, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) agreed to ban direct conversions, a position strongly supported by NTEU. Previously, federal agencies were allowed to directly convert functions for three reasons: if the work was being performed by 10 or fewer federal employees; the work, regardless of how many federal employees were performing it, was contracted to a preferred provider; or, the agency could place all impacted federal employees, no matter the number, into other positions.

President Kelley also told Administrator Safavian that NTEU is interested in discussing the performance of some contractors who have recently won competitions for federal work and who, in NTEU's view, are not meeting their contractual obligations.

Specifically, Kelley mentioned one contractor, who took over some work previously performed by Internal Revenue Service (IRS) employees, and then asked the IRS to assign federal employees to help with their workload because the contractor was unable to keep up.

"If the administration truly wants to have the work of the federal government done in the most efficient manner," Kelley wrote, "then this kind of contractor non-performance must be addressed."

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing some 150,000 employees in 30 agencies and departments.