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Washington, D.C.—The idea of splitting the concept of pay-for-performance from proposed regressive labor relations changes in civil service rules would not lessen the opposition of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) to the administration’s proposed ‘Working for America Act (WFAA),’ the leader of the union said today.

WFAA “holds out the false promise that government service to America’s taxpayers would improve if only federal employees were paid less and had fewer workplace rights,”” said NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley. “NTEU will continue to oppose such legislation strenuously.”

Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Director Linda Springer suggested the administration might focus only on the pay portion of its hoped-for and far-reaching civil service changes embodied in the proposed WFAA—legislation that has yet to attract a congressional sponsor.

Springer made her comments about the administration’s idea in testimony on OPM’s fiscal 2007 budget before the House Government Reform Subcommittee on the Federal Workforce and Agency Organization.

The administration has taken a legal beating thus far in its efforts to implement new personnel rules for both the Departments of Homeland Security (DHS) and Defense; it has been on the losing side of two such federal court cases—including the initial case involving DHS regulations, in which NTEU is the lead counsel.

Much of what Springer indicated might be dropped in the labor relations area was not going anywhere in any event due to NTEU’s legal and legislative efforts, the NTEU leader said. President Kelley noted that less than a month ago, Director Springer told an audience of some 300 NTEU leaders and activists at the union’s annual legislative conference that WFAA legislation is not likely to be advanced at least until after November’s midterm elections.

“NTEU continues to believe strongly,” Kelley said, “that the government should not move to implement an untested, complex pay-for-performance system, when it is clear that it has no real chance of success.”

Such a system in the federal workplace faces a number of critical problems, the NTEU leader said, including the fact that it likely would be under-funded—Kelley described that as “a fatal flaw;” that managers are simply untrained in making the workplace distinctions essential to winning employee confidence that the system is fair, transparent and credible; that a workable performance management system is not in place; that the system would give unprecedented power to OPM; and that such a system is open to favoritism and cronyism.

“The underlying concept of WFAA is not only ill-advised,” President Kelley said, “it is wrong. Splitting pay-for-performance from the regressive personnel rules this administration is seeking to impose on the federal workforce does nothing to remedy that.”

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