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Washington, D.C.?The Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) is a federal agency "in crisis." grossly understaffed for its growing workload and with an unacceptably high turnover rate that "robs PTO of experienced workers," the leader of the union representing agency employees said in congressional testimony today.

President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), which represents more than 2.700 PTO employees, told the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property that the agency desperately needs "leadership from the Congress and the Executive Branch."

She called on both Congress and the administration "to have the courage that NTEU has to make the radical changes needed in PTO personnel policies," including legislation that would allow the agency to operate more like a private sector business with increased personnel flexibilities that would be balanced with "normal collective bargaining" rights for employees including the right to bargain over pay.

While PTO adopted limited organizational changes under legislation approved last year, including splitting the Patent and Trademark Offices into separate entities, Kelley noted that the sweeping changes needed at the agency failed to win congressional approval.

She offered the committee a new proposal building on that legislation. The NTEU president proposed to leave the status quo in place at the Patent Office, but to make substantial changes on the Trademark Office side of things, "where employees are united in support for reform." She urged the subcommittee to "give us normal labor relations, including bargaining over pay," in the Trademark Office.

This, she said, would allow that office "to respond to fluctuating labor market demands and bring in and retain the best and brightest."

High turnover and the resulting heavy training costs for new employees divert funds from the agency's mission?the processing of patent and trademark applications?she said, thus preventing NTEU?represented employees from providing the kind of service they are capable of.

She urged the committee to stop the practice of diverting user fees into general revenues. The administration's 2001 budget request has $368 million in such transfers planned, a step that Kelley called "inappropriate and something that is severely damaging to the operations of PTO."