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NCUA Employees Join Other Financial Regulators In Organizing into Treasury Employees Union

Press Release June 30, 2004

Washington, D.C.—Employees of the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) have voted by 345 to 220 for representation by the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), joining a growing number of federal workers in financial regulatory agencies seeking NTEU representation. Including both professional and non-professional employees, the NCUA bargaining unit will number some 800.

NTEU already represents employees of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The nationwide NCUA vote was conducted by the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA), which oversees federal sector labor-management relations. Employees at NCUA headquarters, in Alexandria, Virginia, voted in person today; NCUA employees in offices around the country voted by mail over the past 30 days. The vote count was reported from the FLRA office in San Francisco.

NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley applauded the determination of NCUA employees to press for a vote on union representation despite a management challenge with the FLRA to the makeup of a potential bargaining unit. NCUA claimed that some 500 agency employees, mostly credit union examiners, were ineligible to be represented by a union. The FLRA rejected that argument.

“We were confident that once NCUA employees had the opportunity to express themselves in a vote, they would choose to join with so many others in the federal financial regulatory community” in being represented by NTEU, Kelley said. “We look forward to representing them effectively and to establishing a good working relationship with NCUA management.”

NCUA administers the Federal Credit Union Act, which gives it the authority to supervise and regulate federally-insured credit unions, as well as some state-chartered credit unions. Its principal

task is to ensure credit union safety and soundness and to minimize risk to the National Credit Union Shared Insurance Fund. That fund covers the liabilities of an individual credit union that might be closed and liquidated, ensuring that depositors receive all their insured funds.

As the largest independent federal union, NTEU represents some 150,000 employees in 30 agencies and departments, including NCUA.

Contact: NTEU-PR@NTEU.org, 202-572-5500