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Washington, D.C. — The National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) has signed a new collective bargaining agreement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that provides agency employees with new and enhanced rights and benefits encompassing several workplace issues such as compensatory time, leave sharing and telework.

NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley praised the union’s success in the face of a tough negotiating atmosphere, saying that the new labor-management contract will go far toward making the SEC one of the most employee-friendly agencies in the federal government.

“Not only did we retain and improve upon several key employee rights and benefits, but we also successfully prevented many one-sided workplace proposals that the SEC tried to implement,” President Kelley said.

Some of the benefits provided by NTEU-SEC collective bargaining agreement are:

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An expanded telework program allowing employees to work from home for three, four, and, in some cases, five days per week;

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A new compressed 4/10 work schedule that allows employees to work four ten-hour days and take off one day per week. This benefit comes in addition to a 5-4/9 work schedule already in place, which allows employees to work eight nine-hour days and take off one day every two weeks;

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A leave sharing program that allows enrolled employees to use annual leave that has been donated to a special “leave bank” by their colleagues when faced with a sudden medical emergency; and

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Compensatory time off for travel.

Some of the misguided, pro-management workplace recommendations that NTEU successfully blocked included allowing managers the ability to unilaterally remove employees from a 5-4/9 work schedule at any time, for any reason; efforts to strip employees’ right to grieve merit pay decisions; and a plan that would have required employees requesting advanced sick leave to take at least five consecutive days off.

Kelley said the new NTEU-SEC agreement will improve employee morale and serve as a model for other collective bargaining agreements.

“While employees in other agencies have seen their rights and benefits stalled or eroded, SEC employees will see substantial improvements to a workplace contract that was already strong,” she said.

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing 150,000 employees in 31 agencies and departments, including about 2,500 in the SEC.