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Washington — Language in the president’s FY 2009 budget indicating the administration would seek to repeal newly-enacted federal law that provides a more level playing field for federal employees in the fight to retain the work of the public in their hands drew strong criticism from the leader of the nation’s largest independent union of federal employees.

“Congress got it right when it enacted much-needed and key improvements in federal contracting rules,” said President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU). “Despite the desire of the White House to turn over as much federal work as it can to the private sector, we are not going to let them run from this important commitment to fairness and to the fundamental need to spend federal dollars in ways most advantageous to the taxpayers.”

Kelley has long led the fight against runaway federal contracting. Most recently, that battle resulted in congressional approval of language, in the fiscal 2008 omnibus spending bill, that extends to federal workers the same rights to appeal agency contracting decisions that have long been available to contractors.

Moreover, it prevents contractors from offering substandard—or no—health or retirement benefits to its employees as a means of gaining an unfair advantage in bidding against federal employees for work from government agencies; and it requires that private sector bids for federal work show a savings of $10 million or 10 percent beyond the cost of keeping the work in the hands of trained, accountable federal employees. Such restrictions were made permanent and government-wide.

“The fact is,” President Kelley said, “that one of the key problems with such contracting is that it falls far short of the public interest.”

The issues include contracts where the work is ill-performed, where the ultimate cost is greater than the initial bid by the private company, and where federal employees have to be called in to rescue a contractor who has not been able to hold up its end of the bargain with the government.

“The overwhelming evidence is that the most efficient and effective way to get federal work performed is by using trained, dedicated federal employees,” Kelley said.

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing 150,000 employees in 31 agencies and departments.