[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 68 (Thursday, May 26, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: May 26, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                           THE PUBLIC MANAGER

                                 ______


                          HON. STENY H. HOYER

                              of maryland

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 26, 1994

  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of the work of 
Allan Kam and Jerry Shaw. They are the cochairs of the Coalition for 
Effective Change [CEC], to represent career Federal professionals, 
managers, and executives. The CEC has grown to 25 Federal employee 
associations with a membership of well over 100,000 people. Their hard 
work in the area of reinventing government has been extraordinarily 
valuable. I would like to submit their recent article, ``Federal 
Managers and Top Professionals Band Together to help Reinventing 
Government,'' in the Public Manager into the Congressional Record.
  Mr. Speaker, as you know, I represent a large percentage of the 
Federal work force. In accordance with the Vice President's hard work 
on behalf of reinventing government, we now have the very difficult 
task of the implementation of the National Performance Review.
  In February, the CEC met with the Vice President, who indicated that 
the CEC would serve in an advisory relationship with the President's 
Management Council. Mr. Speaker, the Coalition for Effective Change 
has, and will continue to, play a major role in the reinventing 
government process and throughout the implementation of the National 
Performance Review.
  Mr. Speaker, it is with great pride that I submit this article by 
Allan Kam and Jerry Shaw into the Record. Moreover, I am sure that my 
fellow colleagues and the public will find this information both 
insightful and helpful.

     The Coalition for Effective Change: Federal Managers and Top 
        Professionals Band Together To Help Reinvent Government

                   (By Allan J. Kam & G. Jerry Shaw)

       In spring 1993, leading professional associations of senior 
     managers and executives such as the Federal Executive 
     Institute Alumni Association (FEIAA) and the Senior Executive 
     Association (SEA) encouraged members to send suggestions to 
     the National Performance Review (NPR). We have as much an 
     interest as anyone in making government work better and cost 
     less. In June, NPR Project Director Bob Stone spoke at the 
     FEIAA monthly luncheon and at the SEA annual conference, 
     asking for continued support. In short, at NPR's request, the 
     respected organizations of federal career executives, 
     managers, and other professionals gave their imprimatur to 
     the NPR, thus adding legitimacy in the federal community to 
     Vice President Gore's ``reinventing government'' efforts.


                             the npr report

       We eagerly awaited the scheduled release of the NPR report 
     on September 7. In summer, we were informed that while the 
     overall NPR report would be released on September 7, the 
     agency-specific and ``cross-cutting'' reports on areas such 
     as personnel and procurement would take somewhat longer to 
     complete. We expected to be engaged in a constructive 
     dialogue with the administration throughout the fall and 
     winter on the various observations, suggestions, and 
     recommendations of the NPR reports. Through the Public 
     Employees Roundtable (PER), a consortium of approximately 30 
     professional associations with more than a million members, 
     which SEA and FEIAA helped co-found 11 years ago, briefings 
     for PER member organizations were scheduled for September 2 
     and September 30.
       At the September 2 briefing for PER, we were surprised (but 
     not disturbed) that NPR had invited many union 
     representatives. We were disturbed to learn that the NPR 
     report to be released five days later would recommend 
     creation of a ``national partnership council'' consisting of 
     political appointees and union leaders, but no 
     representatives of career managers, executives, and other 
     professionals. At the end of the September 2 briefing, after 
     hearing the NPR leadership respond to several questions from 
     labor union leaders, PER Chair Jerry Shaw complained that the 
     views of professional/management associations were not being 
     taken into account. At the September 15 FEIAA monthly 
     luncheon, President Allan Kam expressed dissatisfaction with 
     the exclusion of career professionals from the 
     ``partnership:''
       The NPR proposal to establish a so-called National 
     Partnership Council should be viewed with great caution. . . 
     We are concerned that the administration seems more 
     interested in empowering labor unions than in working with 
     career managers and executives and their professional 
     associations.
       How did the unions get this extraordinary role in 
     implementation of the NPR, while the professional/management 
     associations, which had given the reinventing government 
     effort their all-out support throughout the spring and 
     summer, were left out? We may never know all of the reasons. 
     However, a month after the NPR report was issued the outline 
     of how an agreement had been reached between the vice 
     president and the union leaders was reported. An article said 
     that the key players were Vice President Gore, his senior 
     domestic policy advisor, Dr. Elaine Kamarck, and two union 
     leaders, John Sturdivant, president of the American 
     Federation of Government Employees (AFL-CIO), and Robert 
     Tobias, president of the National Treasury Employees Union.
       In pertinent part, the article reported:
       Last summer, before the review was released, Kamarck 
     briefed Sturdivant and Tobias on its personnel ideas. The two 
     leaders were appalled that unions were never mentioned in the 
     NPR drafts. ``We said, `This stuff is not going anywhere,''' 
     says Sturdivant. They demanded a meeting with Gore and got it 
     in late August. The next day, they started a week-long series 
     of sessions with Kamarck and other Gore staffers in which the 
     National Partnership Council was born.\2\


                      hasty report implementation

       While we were stunned that career managers, executives, and 
     nonunion professionals had been excluded from the National 
     Partnership Council, we were even more concerned about the 
     implicit attacks on the value of career managers and 
     supervisors in the report. (We have subsequently been assured 
     by the NPR staff that this was never intended.) The speedy 
     timetable for implementation of the NPR recommendations could 
     also preclude review by professional/management associations 
     with the administration. Unlike the unions, we did not have 
     the benefit of briefings on NPR drafts and negotiations with 
     the vice president and his senior staff before the NPR report 
     was finalized.
       The initial NPR Report, Creating a Government That Works 
     Better & Costs Less, was mailed on September 7, and received 
     later that week. On September 11, four days after the report 
     was mailed, and before it could be reviewed by its 
     recipients, the NPR implementation steamroller started its 
     roll. On that date, President Clinton signed his 
     ``Streamlining Bureaucracy'' memorandum to agency heads [58 
     Federal Register 48583 (September 16, 1993)]. The president 
     ordered a reduction in the overall federal workforce by only 
     about one-eighth, or 12 percent, but decided to reduce the 
     number of managers and supervisors by one-half. The NPR's 
     message (intended or not) was widely interpreted and reported 
     by union leaders and the media as:
       The vice president says that government is broken and 
     doesn't work. The problem is too many managers and 
     supervisors. The solution is to get rid of half the managers 
     and supervisors.


                   changes at opm and sunsetting fpm

       We were also concerned about the image the NPR had created 
     of governmentwide personnel regulations. The NPR report 
     recommended that the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) 
     phase out the Federal Personnel Manual (FPM), suggesting a 
     careful, deliberate, consultative process by OPM before any 
     parts of the FPM were sunsetted.
       However, in summer and fall 1993, ominous rumors circulated 
     that OPM was about to be gutted. Severe downsizing was 
     reportedly being planned, even though the NPR's agency-
     specific report on OPM had not yet been issued.
       It was also rumored that the FPM was to be the fuel of 
     choice for a book-burning party. While we recognize that 
     parts of the FPM are redundant or worthy of sunsetting, other 
     parts are important to federal professionals and other users, 
     and no replacements have been developed. Yet, OPM was 
     apparently working at a swift pace to repeal large chunks of 
     the FPM.
       FEIAA, SEA, the Federal Managers Association (FMA), and the 
     Professional Managers Association (PMA) were briefed on FPM 
     sunsetting by OPM staff on October 22. Our quick comments 
     were invited, but we were told candidly that the staff's 
     recommendations to the OPM director were due November 15 and 
     there would be a presumption against retention of any portion 
     of the FPM. It was clear that meaningful consultation with 
     the affected federal community and their professional 
     associations was not the order of the day. The perceived 
     marching orders were to rescind the FPM.


              professional associations must band together

       By late October it was distressingly clear that:
       The administration was moving rapidly to implement the NPR 
     recommendations;
       The unions were institutionally involved as full partners 
     in NPR implementation;
       Professioal/management associations were not at the table 
     or in the loop;
       OPM was reportedly going to be severely downsized;
       Much of the FPM and the guidance it provided was being 
     sunsetted; and
       To say the least, career professionals, managers, and 
     executives and their professional associations were about to 
     be ``rolled over'' by the NPR bandwagon.
       In September and October, several professional and 
     management associations individually sought to establish a 
     dialogue with the administration about the NPR report and how 
     it would affect their members. Some had more success than 
     others, but by late October we concluded that none had yet 
     had meaningful input. Since the associations could not obtain 
     meaningful input individually, FEIAA initiated conversations 
     among several of the organizations about joining together to 
     be heard.
       At the PER annual retreat on October 24, it became apparent 
     that virtually all the major professional associations were 
     deeply concerned about the NPR report and its implementation. 
     Since PER itself was not the appropriate vehicle, we decided 
     to organize a new coalition right away, before any further 
     critical decisions on NPR implementation were made without 
     our input.


                          formation of the cec

       SEA and FEIAA co-sponsored an organizing meeting on 
     November 5, attended by representatives of several concerned 
     professional/management associations. A consensus was reached 
     to form a coalition. We agreed that the coalition was not 
     being formed to oppose NPR, but rather to involve 
     professional associations in its implementation. We were 
     convinced that trying to implement NPR without career 
     professionals, managers, and executives would be like trying 
     to run a car on three wheels--it raises a lot of dust but 
     does not work very well.
       A mission statement, which was finalized and adopted at the 
     next meeting of the coalition on November 12. The authors of 
     this article were selected to co-chair the new Coalition for 
     Effective Change.

                          ____________________