Five weeks of CFPB’s unilateral delays on our salary reviews (and counting)

Back in March, the Union warned Human Capital of reports from our members that some coworkers did not trust the salary reviews would be done fairly and weren’t planning to participate. If these salary reviews are anything like SEC’s 2014 reviews or CFTC’s 2020 pay reassessment, employees who don’t participate could end up missing out on tens of thousands of dollars in future salary increases. Despite initial signs from Human Capital that they shared our concerns and our goal of building trust in the salary reviews process, we fear that their priorities have changed. Their focus now appears to be on reducing costs for the agency at every possible opportunity, instead of carrying out a fair review that has the employees’ full trust and participation. 

We present this timeline of events so you can judge for yourself. We still urge all employees to participate in the salary reviews, because no matter what management does, the Union will continue to hold them accountable at every step of this process. We can only do that if every employee participates and demands what we deserve. We intend to win full equal and comparable pay for ourselves. It’s what they owe us.

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Union and CFPB agree on salary review & reset

October 2020: Union publishes pay study showing pay gap at CFPB.

January 4, 2021: Union ratifies new Compensation Agreement, which requires the parties to jointly review all bargaining unit employees’ work experience in 2021 for the purposes of a salary reset in 2022. The Compensation Agreement requires both parties to jointly develop the salary review experience collection form, tutorials, communications, and guidance for the joint labor-management committees who will perform the salary reviews. Guidance for the committees includes information about how work experience is defined and how it should be interpreted and credited. Work experience is to be credited as either direct experience, indirect experience, or other experience (neither direct or indirect).

Negotiations on experience definitions begin

March 4: Both parties exchange proposals on Experience Definitions. 

• Our initial Union proposal is based on SEC’s pay setting criteria, which has defined work experience as either “specialized” or “relevant,” since initiating an agency-wide salary review and reset in 2014. 
• CFPB’s proposal is to keep the same experience definitions they have used in pay setting since 2012, which are overly narrow, and rely on pay grade as the definitive factor for being credited for the highest level of experience, “direct experience.” All of these elements are factors in the pay inequities the union documented in our pay study. For example, we estimate that ⅓ of the pay gaps for Black, Hispanic and Native American workers results from disparities in hiring, promotions and grade classification.

March 9: The Union presents our proposed definitions for discussion, and raises several related topics related to the form’s content. Significantly, both parties agreed verbally to the following approach on the topic of how to credit part-time work, unpaid work, and other types of work experience:

    “Generally, for now we should collect all the data up front about how many hours a week a job was done. Joint Labor-Management Committees will decide only if a given job is direct or indirect experience.  These remaining questions about whether and how to treat part time work differently will need to be resolved by pay band negotiations.”

March 10: Both parties agree to delay the start date for salary reviews by one week, pending bug fixes for the online experience data form, and to negotiate and reach agreement on experience definitions.

March 15: Original planned start date for salary reviews, when employees can begin to submit their work experience to the online form.

March 18: CFPB Human Capital attempts to unilaterally end negotiations over experience definitions. CFPB proposes Experience Definitions that ignore the Union’s proposal, and attempts to argue that they are not required to negotiate these definitions with us and would therefore unilaterally implement their own experience definitions that CFPB has used for pay setting since 2012. Union disagrees, threatens to file an unfair labor practice grievance to protect our right to negotiate over the experience definitions, and both parties continue negotiations.

March 18: Union representatives email Acting Director Uejio to raise alarm about CFPB’s initial proposed definitions and the risk of baking in racial disparities from grade classifications in the new pay setting criteria.

March 22: Second attempted start date for salary reviews comes and goes. On March 22, Human Capital and the Union met to determine if the salary reviews could begin. Because the online form still was not ready for launch, and CFPB still had not sent a counterproposal for the experience definitions, we agreed we would delay one more week to complete these items, and Jeff Sumberg and Cat Farman sent a joint All-Hands email to employees announcing the delay.

Both parties reach tentative agreement on experience definitions...

March 24: We reached agreement in principle on a broader definition of direct experience that did not hinge on grade or job title, but instead, was based on the duties and responsibilities in Position Descriptions. 

• Before finalizing the agreement and moving forward with the salary reviews, Union requested that CFPB provide 2 examples for the definition of direct experience to be shared with employees in FAQs when the salary reviews begin, like CFTC did. 
  • The Union agreed to draft 1 example that would specifically illustrate direct experience for examiners. 
  • Our notes dated 3/24: “We agreed to do attorney, examiner, and an example like CFTC #3 where the job titles differ but the work experience was credited if directly related to the current position.”
• Human Capital Director Jeff Sumberg warned us 

March 25: Union asks for an update on the examples for review by Monday, 3/29, which CFPB management agrees to. 

March 26: Union sends our 1 examiner example draft to CFPB.

March 29: CFPB management notifies Union that they have still not written the 2 examples they agreed to draft, and would need two more days to review it internally before sharing with the Union on March 31. The Union agreed to meet 3/31 but requests to see the internal draft ASAP so as not to risk delaying the salary reviews yet again. CFPB agreed and sent the draft version, which included additional examples beyond the scope of what we agreed was needed for starting salary reviews. CFPB never scheduled the follow up meeting.

March 31: CFPB Office of Minority and Women Inclusion (OMWI) publishes its annual report to Congress (PDF) which describes the disparities at CFPB in pay grade. Under the section titled “Challenges,” OMWI reports: “The workforce data shows minority representation decreases as the grade levels increase. And with one of our mission critical positions, the CN-51 level and below is comprised of 83% women and 70% minorities.” Only 2 weeks before on March 18, CFPB’s Office of Human Capital had apparently not gotten the memo of this pending report, and was still attempting to include pay grade in its definition of direct experience.

April 2: We met with Jeff and the Joint Pay Bands working Group and the group jointly agreed to recommend we reschedule pay bands negotiations until after the Joint Labor-Management Committees review employee experience and give them experience credit, so we could have real data for estimating and projecting equity, comparability, and costs. This should have had no delay on the salary reviews schedule, and in fact, would also give more time to prepare to begin the salary reviews.

April 5: Joint Pay Bands Working Group met with Donna Roy to explain why we were making this recommendation to begin pay bands bargaining once the salary reviews are complete and we have real data to work with. Donna Roy requests that the parties begin meeting to discuss other matters if they are going to wait for the full data to begin full negotiations.

April 5: Management and the Union have a check-in meeting to discuss the status of the salary reviews form and experience definitions. The form was ready for launch by this date; only the experience definitions were still not finalized. The Union sent and presented feedback about management’s latest draft and planned to send a revision ASAP.

April 6: The Union presents revised definitions and examples that re-focused on the three examples of attorneys, examiners, and a job title that differed but was counted as direct experience. The Union included 1 additional example at management’s request to illustrate non-SEFL jobs. 

April 7: The Union asks Management for an update on where things stand with the examples, and requests a meeting for the next day.

...but then CFPB begins to stall.

April 8: Management unilaterally delays the next possible start date for salary reviews until the week of April 19. 

• Management announces their intent to delay the salary reviews at least 2 more weeks in order to get feedback from COO Donna Roy by April 9, then present and get feedback from a group of senior managers on April 12, then present and get feedback from the Union, then present and get feedback from Acting Director Uejio.
• Like we did on March 29, the Union again requests to see the internal draft ASAP so as not to risk delaying the salary reviews yet again. This time, Human Capital denies the request and says it cannot be shared for at least 2 more weeks while it’s still circulating among upper management.
• Management consultant Ernst & Young (EY) then presents a revised schedule that threatens to pay employees their salary increases in June 2022 instead of January 2022 as had been previously agreed. (Close readers will recall that EY is the consultant that CFPB pays approximately $1,000,000 a year since 2019 to design and execute the Compensation Reform Program).
• The EY/Management proposed schedule includes increased estimates for key steps such as:
  • The launch of the salary reviews experience form on May 3 because of the unilateral management delays on negotiating the experience definitions.
  • one month to export and email a spreadsheet of employees’ experience data
  • An additional two weeks of padding added to the joint committees’ salary review phase, without explanation. When asked, EY states that this additional time was added to account for “summer vacations.”

April 12: Parties begin daily meetings to discuss pay bands and other matters; the Union requests to focus on finalizing experience definitions, since the matter is high priority and urgent, and we are still waiting on CFPB to provide another draft of the definitions and salary review start has been delayed again. 

• The Union asks for an update on the definitions from management. Management has nothing to share and states that it plans to present the definitions to its senior manager Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) on Wednesday April 14. Quote from management:
  • “Donna wants to review the definitions before sharing with anyone else. I’m hoping we can share with you at the same time we share with the SMEs [i.e., managers across the Bureau]. I don’t expect big changes from the SMEs.”
• The Union again presents its previously-shared feedback and revisions to prompt discussion with management. The discussion indicates both parties still share the interpretation that job titles do not need to match in order to receive direct experience credit, and that the job duties compared to the position description are how direct experience will be evaluated. 

April 14: Management unilaterally delays the next possible start date for salary reviews until April 26.

• Union presents its proposal for revising the experience review and salary reset timeline, given the delays that have already happened. The Union’s timeline requires salary reviews to begin by May 10, and would still allow for 3 months of pay bands negotiations, beginning Sept 1 and ending Dec 1, allowing CFPB to meet its internal salary implementation deadlines for new salaries to begin in pay period 1 of January 2022.
• The Union asks for an update on the definitions from management. Management has nothing to share and states that it has rescheduled its meeting with senior manager SMEs until Monday April 19 and would share the document after that meeting. This would require a delay in launching the salary reviews start date until April 26 or later.

April 19: Management unilaterally delays the next possible start date for salary reviews until April 28. 

• Union requests CFPB’s counterproposal on experience definitions. 
• Management states they just met with their management SMEs this afternoon and needed to make more changes based on the feedback. They will send the next revision in 2 days, for discussion at the scheduled morning meeting on April 21.
• In lieu of negotiating the definitions, EY presents their latest, uh, “musings” on the timeline, which have generously backed off the previously suggested June 2022 implementation for new salaries, all the way to… April 2022. They also weirdly mischaracterize our proposed timeline and think that it also couldn’t be implemented until April 2022, but this contradicts Management’s previous statements that final pay setting agreement by December 1, 2021, would be implementable by PP1 of 2022. Union bargainers point this out and Management re-confirms this.

April 20: The Union cancels our morning meeting with CFPB since we don’t have any definitions still. 

CFPB finally sends their counterproposal on experience definitions and examples mid-afternoon. It includes 25+ examples instead of the three we had agreed were needed. The examples ignore all the feedback we sent on April 5. We agree to meet the next afternoon to discuss.

• The examples again ignored the main goal since March 24, and none of the examples illustrate a job title that differs from a current CFPB position, but is direct experience. There is one exception, which is for experience as an HR Specialist.
• Most of the examples only refer to job titles and do not have any reference to duties and responsibilities, which common sense dictates are the primary factors when considering previous work experience.
• The examples for indirect experience contradict previous discussions and verbal agreements that job titles would not be the deciding factor on whether a job counts as direct experience. For example, management now argues that examiners at CFPB who had a prior job as a compliance officer at a bank would be counted as indirect experience, instead of direct, despite the fact that both jobs have similar job duties and responsibilities. This represents a significant narrowing of the meaning of direct experience that is out of step with previous discussions and with similar pay setting criteria at SEC and CFTC.
• Management has added arbitrary criteria to the examiner example only, that are not present in the definitions themselves, requiring that the prior work experience be in the consumer financial services industry in order to receive credit as direct experience. This means a safety and soundness examiner at another federal agency with the same job title, job code, and job duties would not receive direct experience credit in CFPB’s view, because their work was not in consumer finance.
• Management has added new qualifiers to the language that would allow for subjective interpretation and have no basis in objective facts. For example, they want previous positions to be evaluated for “major” job duties and responsibilities and only those would be counted for direct experience.

April 21: Management cancels the scheduled meeting, our first chance to finalize negotiations since April 6. We respond via email to the Direct experience definition and guidance CFPB proposed the prior day. We tell them that we haven’t seen any examples that incorporate our last round of feedback in CFPB’s latest proposal, which represents a substantial barrier to reaching agreement on the definition examples. In light of that and the form launch deadline, we say we want to focus on getting agreement on the definitions without delay.

April 22: Management cancels the rescheduled meeting.

April 23: We meet to discuss revisions to the definition that better match where the parties where on March 24. We agree to re-focus again on only 2-3 examples and to include an example showing that jobs with similar duties but different job titles could be credited as direct.

April 26: Management shares its latest proposed experience definitions & examples in the morning; Union provides its latest proposal in response in the afternoon, saying “We took your suggestion to identify a couple of examples for each type of experience that we agree with, with the goal of including these in the tutorials and FAQs as part of the form launch.” The parties meet later in the afternoon and continue debating examples.

April 26: We reach tentative agreement on the “direct experience” definition for a second time. Both parties agree on a deadline for launching salary reviews on time with the new schedule. We agree that we must reach agreement on definitions by Wednesday, April 28, or Thursday, April 29 at the latest, in order to launch the salary reviews experience form on the new planned start date of May 3.

April 28: We reach tentative agreement on the definitions for the second time (third time for direct experience!!), pending resolution of the examples. CFPB agrees to draft an example for the next day’s meeting of one contentious item: an example like CFTC #3 where the job titles differ but the work experience is similar and credited as direct experience. NTEU agrees to provide citations of Position Descriptions in support of our version of this example. It seems we are right back where we were on March 24!

• Management continues to thwart agreement, this time introducing new language on part-time or unpaid work, a topic that both parties had previously agreed to defer (see March 9 above). The proposed language states that employees could receive no experience credit whatsoever for second jobs, volunteer work, or unpaid internships, even though the parties agreed back in March that the online experience form will collect this data from employees.

April 29: CFPB cancels our scheduled meeting and blows yet another deadline for starting salary reviews. Human Capital informs us they will be delaying the salary reviews at least another week while they continue to work on a final offer on experience definitions. Management has unilaterally decided on another delay of the salary reviews because they have refused all union proposals on the experience definition examples and have not provided a counter (despite agreeing to send us an example that was the main unresolved item on April 28)

April 30: CFPB cancels another scheduled meeting with Union. At 3pm ET on a Friday, Management emails their updated and final offer on the experience definitions to the Union, for discussion at 10am Monday morning. With management’s most recent delays, salary reviews would begin May 10 or 11 at the earliest...

To be continued.