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Washington, D.C.—The leader of the union representing more than 4,300 employees of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) today urged Congress to reject as “ill-considered” a proposal by the agency for statutory authority that would permit it to remove significant parts of its personnel system from under long-standing civil service provisions.

President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) said the FDIC has “failed to provide any justification” for its legislation proposal that would put at risk such staples of civil service rules as veterans preferences, minority rights and seniority. “It is our hope that Congress will reject this ill-considered and anti-employee proposal,” President Kelley said.

“These proposed changes deviate from long-established civil service practices, and create an imbalance within the federal workforce for no justifiable reason,” she added.

The NTEU leader said the proposal “diminishes employee rights” in a number of key aspects, including giving the agency new authority to set up its own appeals process for disciplinary actions by lowering the standard of evidence management would have to meet; providing management with wide discretion to choose which employees would be laid off in a reduction-in-force (RIF); making veterans preferences little more than a “featherweight” factor in a reduction-in-force; doubling, to two years, the probationary period for new hires; and extending to six years from four years the allowable period of term employment—in which workers do not receive full benefits.

Kelley reminded the FDIC that in March, when Chairman Donald Powell told a congressional committee the agency would seek such authority, NTEU said it would be willing to work with the FDIC on steps to improve its effectiveness and efficiency.

Since then, talks aimed at those goals had achieved “mixed

results,” she said, when the FDIC decided in July to end the discussions, telling NTEU that it needed to immediately submit a legislative proposal to Congress — a step it took two months later.

The NTEU president said the FDIC proposal, if enacted, would seriously cut back not only on civil service protections and other rights for employees, it would provide the agency with few, if any, actual benefits—and carries the considerable potential for serious consequences for taxpayers by adversely impacting the ability of the agency to carry out its mission.

The FDIC is a key federal financial regulatory agency, with a principal mission of helping ensure the safety and soundness of the nation’s banking system.

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