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Washington, D.C. — The National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) has filed a formal protest with the Department of Energy (DOE) following the awarding of federal work to a private contractor at a cost of $2.6 million more than if the work had been left with federal employees.

The decision followed an A-76 competition for the work of DOE headquarters logistics functions which includes electricians, maintenance mechanics, engineering technicians and others in Washington, D.C., and Maryland offices. DOE received bids from the federal employees who currently do the work and an outside contractor and awarded the contract to Logistics Applications, Inc. (LAI) despite the fact that its bid was $2.6 million more than the federal workers’ bid.

A formal protest was also filed with the agency by the Agency Tender Official (ATO), the management official charged with preparing and presenting the employees’ bid. NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley had requested in a letter to the ATO that he file a protest. Both protests were filed late yesterday in order to trigger a regulatory provision that automatically suspends implementation of the decision to contract out.

“It is clear that the DOE employees currently doing this work can continue to provide excellent service to the agency at the best price,” Kelley said “and the agency is unable to provide adequate justification for moving this work to the private sector. NTEU’s protest, and that of the ATO, should compel DOE to step back from its initial decision and award the work to the federal employees.”

NTEU’s protest is particularly critical of DOE for creating an illogical rationalization for its decision based on a previously undisclosed concern about emergency situations and adequate response times. DOE claims that LAI will be better prepared to respond to emergency situations because it promises more “direct productive labor hours,” i.e., more employees.

“DOE pulled this justification out of a hat after NTEU forced it to defend its decision,” Kelley said, adding that the requirement to have additional employees around in case of emergency was never part of the request for proposals. It is also reasonable to assume that the employees’ bid accounted for the need to handle emergency situations, since these experienced employees have certainly been faced with them in the past.

Kelley said even if you buy into the agency’s faulty logic, the conclusion remains flawed because a contractor’s promise to provide more labor hours does not mean the work will get done any faster, or that the contractor will be any better suited than the federal employees to respond to emergency and urgent requirements.

“It simply means,” Kelley said, “that the contractor will take more time and charge more money to perform the function” than would federal employees.

At the end of the day, federal employees who promised to do the work in less time and at less expense have lost out to a higher-priced contractor, the NTEU leader said. “This decision provides another clear indication of why the competitive sourcing process is fundamentally flawed.”

In addition to harming the employees, the decision “does a disservice to the taxpayers” who have not only been deprived of a fair and open competition, but who also “have been obligated to pay $2.6 million more” than had the federal workers been chosen, Kelley said, adding that the rationale for choosing the more expensive bid “defies credulity.”

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