Open letter to Director Kraninger on systemic racism and CFPB

This message was sent to Director Kraninger the morning of Tuesday, June 2, in response to her message to CFPB employees on the subject "Death of George Floyd." As of Wednesday, June 10, she has yet to reply.

Dear Director Kraninger: 

We want to see action: this is the bargaining unit’s response to your email about George Floyd. Although we appreciate your acknowledgement of his murder, the impact it’s had on Black Americans and our nation, and the protests and escalating police violence, we need more. We need you to use your power as the Director of this agency to make real change.

Our union stands unequivocally with Black people fighting for justice and against systemic injustice everywhere, including at CFPB. There are examples of systemic racism and policies that have a particular negative impact on Black employees in every area of CFPB. From when employees are first recruited and hired, to pay setting, salary reviews, promotions, flexible work policies, and work assignments: our Union has brought grievances and can point to examples of discrimination in virtually all aspects of our working conditions. To highlight two current examples, right now, our Union is fighting for equality in our pay and salary reviews, and in our examiner promotions and the Examiner Commissioning Program (ECP).

As you know, your representatives in CFPB Labor Relations will present your compensation proposal to our Bargaining Committee on June 10. We expect real proposals that address pay equity and the broken salary review process, which has not resulted in any real change for employees of color, who for years have been paid less compared to their white colleagues doing the same exact work. We expect a real negotiations process that listens to the Union’s proposals to address these issues, which harm many employees, and have a negative material impact for Black employees in particular that must be repaired.

The ECP Case Study Assessment has been a vector for inequality in examiner promotions and pay for years. Despite doing the same work as their white colleagues, we have observed Black field examiners being disproportionately failed by the subjective and opaque Case Study portion of the ECP, preventing them from being promoted.  Other agencies do not require examiners to be assessed on the case study in order to be promoted, much less to keep their jobs. After years of attempted negotiations and grievances to address this problem, NTEU has once again filed a grievance in order to seek recourse for all employees who are unfairly blocked from promotions this way. We need CFPB Labor Relations to present honest, good faith solutions to settling this grievance and making impacted employees whole. 

In general, we need CFPB to respond with real solutions to employee grievances and Union proposals. We hear CFPB managers describe working with the Union as your “labor obligations” regularly. But the Union is not an obligation or a legal checkmark. We are nothing more and nothing less than the collective voice of the employees. You can see this in the diversity of our leadership, which consists of people of color and Black women, including our democratically-elected Chapter Executive Board, our Bargaining Committee and our Chapter Stewards. Yet when we sit across from CFPB management to negotiate our concerns, we are confronted with the obvious lack of diversity and representation within CFPB upper management, who are disproportionately white.

We attempt to bring issues of serious concern and urgency for the employees to these managers, and are dismissed, belittled, and even retaliated against for doing so. We approach the grievance process with real solutions in mind, with the intent to settle employee concerns as efficiently as possible. Yet CFPB responds with denial after denial, drafted, not by supervisors who can fix the problem, but by attorneys in the Legal Division in order to justify management’s inaction. How can Black employees be heard and get justice in this country when they cannot even get a serious response from their own supervisors, written in their own words, in the workplace? And even this weakened grievance right is under threat with your midterm bargaining proposals, which would remove employees’ ability to file grievance complaints about discriminatory discipline or terminations.

These are only a few examples of the ways our country’s ongoing legacy of anti-Black racism shows up at CFPB. As federal police violently tear-gas peaceful demonstrators outside CFPB’s front door, we are forced to confront how systemic racism is maintained inside CFPB. Our Union can’t ignore the cries of protestors and so we are renewing our commitment to doing everything in our power to dismantle oppression and racism, starting in our own workplace. Will you?

Sincerely, 

Catherine Farman
President, NTEU Chapter 335