On June 21st, a bipartisan group 31 members of the House of Representatives sent a letter to Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel, asking for him to clarify both his rationale and justification for furloughing employees at activities which are funded by Working Capital Funds.
Activites such as these do not recieve directly appropriated funds from Congress. They recieve funding and tasking from customers at program offices, who have already had budgets reduced due to sequestration.
Seeing the potential for these budget reductions at the program level, many activities took pro-active steps to manage workload and resources, such as instituting hiring freezes, limiting overtime, and developing other product lines to draw in new customers.
Through these measures, these activities have created a sufficent buffer against the impacts of sequestration, and do not need to furlough employees. In fact, many agencies are actually behind in production, and are currently requiring overtime in order to meet tasking obligations with a reduced workforce.
Even though there is no business case to support it, furlough notices have gone out employees notifying them that they will be required to take 11 days of unpaid leave between now and the end of September.
Why? Because the Secretary of Defense has issued a politically motivated arbitrary policy, designed to amplify the effect of sequestration, while punishing career civil servants.
Read the letter that Congress sent below the jump
Nearly 300 employees at the activity where I work responded to the Furlough notices which were issued about 4 weeks ago. Yesterday, we received decision letters which stated "Your written reply received in response to that notice has been reviewed and carefully considered. I have determined that the reasons for the proposed furlough as stated in the notice of the proposal remain valid."
This letter failed to address any of the points that were raised, most notably, that no business case exists for a furlough, and the policy, as issued by the Secretary of Defense is unlawful under 10 CFR 129.
Our next path is to appeal this furlough to the Merit Systems Protection Board, but we will not get a hearing for several months, until the furlough is over. In other words, even though it's illegal, and there is no rational reason for it, Secretary Hagel is forcing several thousand employees to give up 11 days of work.
Why am I writing this dairy here? Quite simply, this is the only place that seems to care. We've contacted hundreds of journalists, but nobody is interested. After all, this is a bipartisan, facts based issue, that runs counter to the already established narrative that this furlough is due to the sequester.
Let me be clear, this furlough is not due to the sequester. Budget cuts have already happened, and many agenicies still have plenty of funding to avoid furlough. The reason they are still furloughing employees is because the Secretary of Defense said so.
And now for that letter. We might be 4 inexperienced union representatives at a small naval activity, but Congress agrees with us. What we need now is wide coverage to get this word out... there is no reason for this, and the Secretary of Defense is acting recklessly, causing harm to our military, by playing politics with the federal workforce.
Thank you all for reading.
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June 21, 2013
Dear Secretary Hagel:
We are writing to express our concern about the determination that civilian workers at entities funded through Defense Working Capital funds are subject to furloughs. It appears that there are substantial legal and economic questions surrounding the decision to impose furloughs on these employees.
We request an explanation as to whether the Department considers civilian employees at Working Capital fund entities to be "indirectly funded Government employees of the Department of Defense," as defined in 10 USC 129. If so, we further request an explanation of the legal justification the Department is using to impose furloughs on these civilian workers, despite the explicit protections afforded them under this statute.
Furthermore, while the Department sought to alleviate a shortfall in its operating funds for fiscal year 2013, we request the Department clarify its rationale in determining that furloughing these workers would reduce its operating expenses. Specifically, please provide the Department's estimate of the reduction in FY 2013 spending as a result of furloughing civilian workers at entities funded through Working Capital funds.
We are concerned that, in addition to the loss of pay these civilian employees now face and the subsequent impact this will have on our local communities, moving forward with these furloughs will reduce the ability of our civilian workforce to complete workload which is already funded. Further restricting available workforce resources will result in mission delays, eventual overtime, and greater cost to the Department and taxpayers.
We respectfully request your prompt attention to this important issue.
Sincerely,
Derek Kilmer
Adam Smith
Scott Rigell
Tom Cole
Betty McCollum
Dave Loebsack
Rob Bishop
Walter Jones
James Lankford
Austin Scott
Tom Marino
Mo Brooks
Mike Roger (AL)
Cheri Bustos
Blake Farenthold
Bill Shuster
Matt Cartwright
Lou Barletta
Tim Griffin
James McGovern
Tom Cotton
Todd Young
Mike Turner
Filemon Vela
Sanford Bishop
Emanuel Cleaver
Julia Brownley
Ralph Hall
Paul Cook
Markwayne Mullin
Paul Tonko