July 6, 2010

Patricia Barts, a member of the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association (NARFE) from Atco, NJ, testified last week that her employer, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), took 16 years to upgrade her from a seasonal to permanent worker, which significantly lowered the annuity she receives in retirement.

Barts' testimony was part of a hearing held by the House Subcommittee on the Federal Workforce, regarding federal agency use of temporary and seasonal hiring authority. 

"I enjoyed working for the agency and always felt respected by my superiors. Still, as a matter of equity, I believe I have been unfairly denied benefits which I should have been able to access," Barts said.

Barts begin her career with the IRS in 1970 as a seasonal employee.  However, despite an exemplary work history, salary increases and a promotion, she remained in seasonal status.
           
"During my fourteen seasonal years as a data transcriber, I worked every day except one, being furloughed on a Thursday and brought back on Monday. This was done to break my time. If I had worked the extra day, I would have been made a permanent employee -- and entitled to all of the rights and benefits that would accrue to the status," she said.
           
In 1984 she applied for and was accepted as a tax examiner so that she could be paid a higher salary and finally receive permanent status.  But it took another year and half before the IRS made Barts a permanent employee.  In 1987, when the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) was introduced, Barts and other participants in the older Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) were counseled to remain in CSRS.  "This turned out to be bad advice," she testified.   "At that time the seasonal employees in FERS were credited with a full year's service time if they worked at least four months out of the year."
           
Barts and other CSRS employees asked IRS management if they could receive the same credit for their years of service as FERS workers, but they were turned down.  "It is my feeling that we should have been credited with our service the same as FERS employees.  If this had been the policy, I would have 31 years and 7 months of service instead of 26 years and 7 months. This policy greatly affected my retirement annuity and that of other fellow CSRS workers," Barts said.
           
Following the hearing, NARFE President Margaret L. Baptiste said, "Federal agencies rightly have the discretion to hire temporary and seasonal employees for a specific project with an ending date, or to expedite the process of employing individuals without any previous federal civil service status.  However, we are concerned about what happens to the retirement security of seasonal workers like Ms. Barts who remain in temporary status for 16 years despite her admirable on-the-job performance."

The National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) also warned Congress in the hearing against federal agency misuse of temporary employee status.

"While temporary employment status can be useful to an agency when properly applied, it is also a status that lends itself to abuse and can be an unfair working condition for an employee," NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley said.

Employees classified as temporary do not participate in the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) and lack the right to family and medical leave, as well as leave for military service. Although regulations are clear that agencies are prohibited from using temporary status to avoid the costs of employee benefits, to extend the probationary period or to avoid competitive hiring, NTEU is concerned that these regulations are often ignored.

As an example, Kelley highlighted a situation at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), which hired thousands of temporary employees during the 1980s to manage and liquidate the assets of failed banks and savings and loans.

"They served in continuous one-year appointments with thousands of them serving longer than five years and many renewed yearly for over fifteen years," Kelley said. "These employees were clearly temporary only in name."

According to NTEU, with the passage legislation creating FERS, federal employees without retirement credit because they had years in temporary status were able to buy back credit for the years prior to 1989 by paying for the retirement deductions that were not taken. But the former temporary FDIC employees were not allowed to buy back credit for temporary service after 1989. The result is that valuable service time from January 1, 1989, until the date that they actually became eligible to participate in FERS and have deductions made was essentially lost or forfeited.

"With 180,000 temporary employees, representing 10% of our federal civilian workforce, it is our duty as citizens to rectify a situation where many of these employees are being treated as second class workers," said the subcommittee's chairman Stephen F. Lynch (D - MA). "Although reforms have been made, we must sharpen our regulations and oversight to lessen any abuses that may be occurring. If the federal government is to truly shine as a model employer, we must treat all of our employees with the utmost fairness and respect."

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