[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 118 (Thursday, July 20, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1478]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


 INTRODUCTION OF THE FEDERAL SERVICE PRIORITY PLACEMENT PROGRAM ACT OF 
                                  1995

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                       HON. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON

                      of the district of columbia

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, July 20, 1995
  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing the Federal Service 
Priority Placement Act of 1995. This bill directs the Office of 
Personnel Management [OPM] to establish a governmentwide interagency 
placement program for Federal employees affected by reductions-in-force 
[RIFs]. I believe that the immediate enactment of this legislation is 
essential to respond to the needs of employees who, through no fault of 
their own, will be adversely affected by the massive downsizing of the 
work force ordered in the Federal Workforce Restructuring Act of 1994 
(P.L. 103-226) and increased under the recently passed budget 
resolution for fiscal year 1996. Recall that no plan or rationale that 
matched the number of employees to be eliminated with the 
administration's National Performance Review efficiency objectives was 
ever offered. Indeed, the number kept changing, going from initially 
100,000, then to 272,900, and will undoubtedly go even higher under the 
new Congress, giving the downsizing the appearance of deficit reduction 
without efficiency goals. As such, RIF's may well be inevitable in the 
future, notwithstanding the widespread use of buyouts by Federal 
agencies.
  The purpose of the legislation is to ensure that the Federal 
Government selects its own displaced employees over outside hires when 
filling vacant positions. RIF'ed employees are a valuable resource of 
dedicated civil servants in whom the Government has invested training 
and knowledge. It is in the Government's best interest to take 
advantage of the continued positive contribution these employees can 
make rather than to discard the Government's investment and start all 
over with new hires. We will not achieve a government that works better 
and costs less if the talents and energies the government has helped to 
produce are not rechanneled where they are needed in the government. 
The Federal Service Priority Placement Program Act of 1995 would 
facilitate the placement of RIF'ed employees at other agencies by 
requiring that those agencies with vacant positions within RIF'ed 
employees' commuting areas offer jobs to such qualified employees 
first.
  Last fall OPM launched its new Interagency Placement Program [IPP], 
an initiative that combines the old Displaced Employee Program and the 
Interagency Placement Program. I believe that the new IPP is sure to be 
as ineffective as the two programs it replaced because OPM only refers 
registrants for vacancies to be filled by competitive appointment. Most 
important, agencies need only consider, and are not required to hire 
qualified OPM referrals. Agencies can avoid hiring the RIF'ed employee 
by simply filing an objection with OPM. In the context of the most 
extraordinary downsizing in the Federal Government's history, this 
hardly seems fair to qualified employees RIF'ed to satisfy an 
undocumented quota having nothing to do with their own qualifications 
or record of service.
  A 1992 GAO study makes clear that a clear and direct statutory 
mandate that agencies give RIF'ed employees a mandatory hiring 
preference over outside job applicants is warranted. Otherwise, it is 
not at all clear that agencies will voluntarily give up their 
prerogative under the existing OPM placement program to reject 
displaced workers and hire whoever they want to fill vacant positions.
  The President's National Partnership Council, a new Federal labor-
management organization, has likewise recognized the need for the 
Federal Government, in the midst of such massive downsizing, to be more 
activist in trying to place displaced employees. In a July report, the 
Council advocated a governmentwide placement policy that gave displaced 
or RIF'ed employees priority over outside hires. Similarly, in an NPR 
draft report entitled the ``Federal Human Resource Management 
Reinvention Act of 1995,'' the administration endorses requiring 
agencies to give their own displaced employees and displaced employees 
from other Federal agencies placement priority over new outside hires.
  The Federal Service Priority Placement Act of 1995 protects the 
Federal Government's sizable investment in personnel training and 
education while accomplishing the goal of governmentwide downsizing in 
the most orderly and humane fashion.


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