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Washington, D.C.—The leader of the nation’s largest independent union of federal workers today welcomed the markup by a key Senate committee of a bill that would restore and strengthen protections for federal workers who speak out about waste, fraud and abuse in their agencies.

President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) said action by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee “is an important step in providing necessary and appropriate protections” for federal whistleblowers.

In the years since passage of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, which contained such protections, along with subsequent amendments to that Act, decisions of federal courts have significantly eroded the rights of federal employees who speak out about these actions occurring in their workplaces, Kelley said.

Further, she pointed out, the Office of Special Counsel (OSC), which is supposed to enforce whistleblower protection laws in the federal workplace, has lost its credibility under the new Special Counsel, Scott Bloch. He has allegedly embarked upon a campaign of retaliation against his own employees and has been accused of closing hundreds of whistleblower cases prematurely, without adequate investigation.

President Kelley particularly applauded the efforts of Committee Chairman Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-HI) in helping advance the bill. A similar measure was approved by the committee last year. Kelley called on both the House and Senate to approve expanded whistleblower rights.

The Senate bill (S. 494) contains a series of important reforms that would, among other things, protect employees who make whistleblower disclosures in the course of performing their duties, or who reveal false statements that have been made to Congress, or who disclose classified information to those, such as members of Congress, authorized to receive such information; protect whistleblowers against retaliatory investigations or revocations of their security clearances; make permanent the prohibition against requiring federal employees to sign non-disclosure agreements that do not guarantee their statutory free speech rights, including rights under the Whistleblower Protection Act; and establish a five-year pilot program under which whistleblowers would have rights to appeal decisions of the MSPB in the regional circuit courts of appeals, ending the Federal Circuit’s monopoly on such appeals.

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