Union Health & Safety Committee urges Director Chopra to listen to employees & extend COVID-19 protections through at least June

Based on your feedback, our Health and Safety Committee proposed earlier this month that the Bureau extend the current operating status and COVID flexibilities through at least June in order to give employees – particularly those with school-aged children – the ability to plan longer term to ease some of the stress and anxiety caused by the constant short-term extensions. Management had not provided us with a response or feedback about that proposal. Until yesterday.

Management informed the Union’s Health & Safety Committee yesterday that they intend to announce some time today that they will be extending the current operating status and COVID flexibilities. This is necessary. But they did not say how long they will extend the current posture for, and were not responsive to our requests to discuss extending it through June.

We deserve safe, secure working conditions, and a seat at the table in making decisions that affect our lives so fundamentally. If the constant threat of yanking away covid protections and telework is a stressor in your life, please, take 1 minute right now to ask Director Chopra to extend take 1 minute to urge Director Chopra to listen to employees the current protections through at least June and to work with our Health and Safety Committee to negotiate the details.

Read below the letter sent on behalf of the Health and Safety Committee to Director Chopra about our frustrations at employees’ voices being ignored.

Dear Director Chopra,

At today’s NTEU Health and Safety Committee weekly COVID-19 meeting with Ops and Labor Relations, Marty Michalosky informed us that, sometime tomorrow, the Bureau intends to announce an extension of the current operating status and COVID flexibilities past Feb. 26th. Unlike in December when Marty and I were in communication with each other about the previous extension, as of today Marty had no information about the length of this next extension. 

While we are of course glad to learn this is happening – as common sense shows it’s very necessary – it’s really just the bare minimum, considering we’re in a global surge of the fastest-spreading virus in human history (oh, how I wish writing these words were an exaggeration, but here we are). So forgive me for skipping the usual niceties and gratitude, and for not editing this message into a more concise summary of the events, as we need to escalate to you quickly our concerns, which all signs indicate are not being heard through the usual channels:

1. Employees want to extend the current posture through at least June. Another 30 or 60 day extension at this stage, after 2 years of uncontrolled transmission, is a form of COVID denial. An extension through June would give employees stability and ameliorate one major cause of the stress and anxiety of this pandemic: the short-sighted, short-term decision making regarding past extensions. It will show management respects employees’ needs, and that short-term extensions won’t be used as a pressure tactic to gain an “edge” in upcoming pay or remote work bargaining – something many employees fear is happening. We hear from parents of school-aged children or under-5 unvaccinated children especially, whose lives are disrupted by every surge. They rely on the max telework and COVID-19 admin leave, among other measures, to adapt to the changing circumstances affecting their children’s education and childcare. And of course many of us who are not parents had reason to use these flexibilities during this current surge, are using them right now, or will need them soon or again.

   We proposed this to Marty in our weekly meetings and asked for regular updates on CFPB’s response over the past month, with no answers each time. We also raised the necessity of this at our last monthly meeting with the Deputy Director and Chief of Staff, but did not receive a substantive response or commitment on that. Since those conversations, we had not heard anything more from management about an extension until today.

2. Employees are not being respected or heard when you make decisions like this one without our input. Please imagine the disrespect that is communicated –and possible labor statute violations, but honestly, this is much more about respecting employees’ input - when decisions are announced without giving our committee proper notice and a chance to negotiate the decision w/employee input. We have shared our proposal on the extension with management, all the way to the Deputy Director, with little to no substantive consideration and zero engagement in collective bargaining. And now we are told you will be deciding without even acknowledging our “through-at-least-June” proposal or confirming you’re aware of it. The same goes for our other most recent COVID-19 proposals we made to CFPB.
3. This reflects a pattern by CFPB of using our dedicated NTEU Health and Safety Committee members when convenient and ignoring us at all other times, which has persisted the entire pandemic, and which you have the opportunity to finally correct & reset with your leadership.
   
   This committee has gone above and beyond to collaborate with Bureau management on COVID safety – while of course dealing with the effects of the virus on our own lives, even some of us losing multiple loved ones and a beloved colleague to it -- yet we are treated, not as equals, as our union representative roles require, but more often as subjects receiving pronouncements from on high, or an administrative hurdle to overcome. That is not our role. We are the voice of the employees who make your work possible.
   
   Our committee has always been extremely responsive to management’s COVID-19 proposals and worked in good faith to represent the bargaining unit while maintaining collaborative relationships with management officials. In December we worked with Marty on very short notice to help him and Comms put out the update on extending protections before Christmas – even though ideally, it would have been announced much sooner, and we had presented many proposals to management before that to get longer-term measures in place, and been ignored. But we still had a shared interest in doing that quickly and getting agreement on an extension, so we figured it out.

   Yet barely a month later, we’re getting even less time and zero input on this same decision now, during the worst surge of the pandemic to date?

   We strongly supported the vaccine mandate. We promoted it via weekly communications and hosted our own Town Hall focused on encouraging getting vaccinated. One of our immunocompromised members very generously and bravely shared her own story of getting vaccinated and getting answers to her questions and concerns from her doctor. She spoke about personal medical risks of the pandemic and how they have affected her, to an event with hundreds of coworkers listening, simply because she wanted to do her part in keeping our coworkers safe. As a result partly of union education and outreach, CFPB can boast of amazing success in vaccination rates, with 96% of employees being fully vaccinated. This was a joint success both parties can be proud of, yet our committee’s influence and trust within the workplace does not translate into cooperation from management on the priorities we set. We can make your jobs easier, or harder, but we consistently are forced to choose the hard path to get any chance at being heard on the most fundamental of issues.

We have worked every day on this issue, and have earned the trust of our colleagues over these 2 years of the pandemic. Like many unions, we earned that trust by being relentlessly honest about the risks of COVID-19, by acting nimbly and quickly without waiting for some other authority to do it for us, and above all, consistently advocating for the simple yet critical safety protocols that we know work to keep people safe. We will work with anyone who earns our trust by acting in the best interest of employee health and safety. But we will not sit idly by while decisions are made in the Kraninger-era fashion of bypassing the union and ignoring employees’ health and safety needs. We must demand better from you, and an equal seat at the table in decisions that concern us.

Unless tomorrow’s announcement is “current posture and protections are extended through at least June, subject to negotiations over details with NTEU” please know that we will pursue every avenue available to make sure employees are heard on this matter.

Thank you,

Catherine Farman

Web Developer | Technology & Innovation

President | NTEU Chapter 335