[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 130 (Monday, October 11, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1867-E1868]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             THE DISABLED FEDERAL EMPLOYEES PROTECTION ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN

                              of maryland

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, October 7, 2004

  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I am proud today to introduce the 
Disabled Federal Employees Protection Act.
  The Disabled Federal Employees Protection Act (DFEPA) simply states 
that in cases where federal jobs are contracted out, a Federal employee 
should not lose his or her job if that employee is an individual with a 
significant physical or developmental disability and had been hired 
under a program designed for individuals with such disabilities.
  The DFEPA was drafted to respond to a particular situation that 
occurred at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. 
Last fall I visited the Hospital, which has developed an innovative and 
successful program hiring developmentally disabled individuals from our 
local community to work in its kitchen and cafeteria. Many of these 
individuals have worked there for more than 20 years. They are hard-
working, reliable, and beloved by the naval officers and staff. I was 
shocked to learn that the Administration had selected these positions 
to be subject to competitive sourcing. In other words, these hard-
working disabled employees, who had been hired under a federal program 
designed specifically to hire the severely disabled, would be forced to 
compete for their own jobs against people who were not disabled, 
leaving them on the verge of losing their jobs. I wrote the President 
about this injustice and am pleased that as a result of our timely 
intervention, plans to compete these jobs have been withdrawn and these 
individuals have been able to keep their jobs and the sense of dignity 
that comes with them.
  But it is unconscionable that other severely disabled Federal workers 
might have to suffer through the same thing. The DFEPA will protect 
Federal employees with severe disabilities from losing their Federal 
jobs as a result of contracting out. The bill does allow for jobs to 
continue to be contracted out to organizations like NISH (formerly 
known as the National Institute for the Severely Handicapped) and the 
National Industries for the Blind covered under the Javits-Wagner-O'Day 
Act (JWOD). JWOD established specific programs to hire the severely 
disabled; it is not the intention of the DFEPA to interfere with JWOD.
  The DFEPA is supported by many organizations, including ANCOR (The 
American Network of Community Options and Resources), The Public Policy 
Collaboration of United Cerebral Palsy and the Arc of the United 
States. The DFEPA also has the support of the Professional Services 
Council, one of the principal organizations representing government 
contractors, because they agree that supporting employment 
opportunities for the disabled is important.
  Mr. Speaker, I believe that everyone in this body wants to protect 
employment opportunities for the severely disabled. I urge my 
colleagues to support and cosponsor the Disabled Federal Employees 
Protection Act.
  I am submitting for the Record an article that was published by The 
Washington Post on October 14, 2003 that describes the situation 
involving the scullery workers at the National Naval Medical Center.

                [From the Washington Post, Oct. 4, 2004]

       In Bethesda, Hiring Policy, ``Competitive Sourcing'' Clash


       Naval Medical Center Considers Replacing Disabled Workers

                          (By Christopher Lee)

       President Bush's efforts to make government run more like a 
     business collided this month with the reality that, in many 
     ways, government is not a business.
       For the past 2 years, the Navy, as part of the Bush 
     administration's initiative, has been studying whether a 
     private contractor should take over the custodial and food 
     services provided by 21 Federal employees at the National 
     Naval Medical Center in Bethesda.
       It is just one small example of Bush's ``competitive 
     sourcing'' initiative, which requires hundreds of thousands 
     of civil servants across the government to prove they can do 
     their work better and more cheaply than a private contractor, 
     or risk seeing the work outsourced.
       But in one important way the 21 workers in the hospital 
     scullery are different: All are mentally retarded, 
     beneficiaries of Federal policies that promote the employment 
     of people with disabilities.
       To their supporters, the administration's requirement that 
     they compete for their jobs misses the point that government 
     employment has always been about more than the bottom line. 
     Through various policies and laws, Federal agencies for 
     decades have gone out of their way to hire members of certain 
     populations, from veterans to disabled people to welfare 
     mothers and students.
       ``There are different goals of the Federal government, and 
     one of those goals is to get different people into real 
     jobs,'' said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who met last 
     month with the scullery workers at the hospital, which is in 
     his district. ``And this [policy] will undercut that goal.''
       Bush has strongly defended ``competitive sourcing,'' 
     calling it one of his most important management initiatives. 
     He says forcing government workers to compete with private 
     contractors for their jobs promotes government efficiency and 
     saves taxpayer dollars--even if the jobs stay in-house. An 
     Oct. 3 report by the Office of Management and Budget said 
     Federal agencies have identified 434,820 jobs that are ripe 
     for such competition, of which 103,412 are being evaluated 
     for possible contracting out.
       ``We are confident that the savings and service benefits 
     expected from this effort will soon follow,'' Clay Johnson 
     III, OMB's deputy director for management, said that day.
       That provides scant comfort to employees such as Devorah 
     Shapiro, 30, who has worked at the hospital scullery for 10 
     years and worries what will happen if she loses her job.
       ``I like working here,'' Shapiro said the other day while 
     taking a break from the first

[[Page E1868]]

     half of her 8-hour shift. ``I work on the belt. I help push 
     carts upstairs sometimes. I wash plates, pick silverware--I 
     do everything.''
       Shapiro landed the job after interning at the hospital 
     while a student at Rock Terrace School, a public campus in 
     Rockville that serves 112 special-needs children in grades 6 
     through 12. ``I live in a group home and I have to pay the 
     rent there,'' said Shapiro, her dark curls tucked neatly 
     under a hairnet. ``And I have to work, or else they'll ask me 
     to leave. I don't want to leave my friends. I don't want to 
     leave my house. It's too nice.''
       The work isn't easy. The employees, clad in blue uniforms 
     and white plastic aprons, remove trash and utensils from used 
     trays as they navigate across a water-slicked red tile floor. 
     Many wear earplugs to block out the drone of the industrial 
     dishwasher that cleans the dishes and trays that pass through 
     it on a conveyer belt before the workers retrieve and stack 
     them in neat piles. Shifts begin at 5:30 a.m. and finish as 
     late as 7 p.m.
       James Eastridge, 38, another former Rock Terrace student, 
     has worked in the kitchen for 22 years. That is long enough 
     for him to earn several promotions and enough money to buy a 
     house in Hagerstown, where he lives with his parents.
       ``I started out when I was 16 years old and just kept on 
     working; the years just flew by,'' he said. ``I hope we get 
     to keep the jobs. When I was in school, I was pretty wild. 
     They got me in the job . . . and I've been doing good ever 
     since I've been here.''
       Randy Severt, a teacher at Rock Terrace, said more than 300 
     students have interned or worked at the hospital since the 
     school formed a partnership with the institution in 1979. The 
     Navy got reliable, long-serving employees for hard-to-fill 
     positions. The students, who earn between $9.42 and $12.80 an 
     hour, were given an opportunity to work, learn about money 
     management and become more self-sufficient.
       Providing such opportunities is a long-standing goal of the 
     Federal government. The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 banned 
     discrimination against disabled people in Federal hiring and 
     required agencies to develop affirmative action plans to hire 
     more people with disabilities.
       Most of the scullery workers joined the hospital under a 
     Federal hiring authority that allows agencies to take on 
     people with mental retardation as provisional employees, then 
     convert them to permanent status after 2 years of 
     satisfactory service. The government employed 1,734 mentally 
     retarded workers in 2000, about one-tenth of 1 percent of the 
     1.8 million-strong Federal civilian workforce, according to 
     the Office of Personnel Management. (Overall, more than 
     120,000 disabled people worked for the government that year, 
     more than 7 percent of the Federal workforce.)
       If the hospital scullery work goes to a private contractor, 
     it will mean a big adjustment for a group of workers who, due 
     to circumstances and disability, do not cope well with 
     change, Severt said.
       ``They have problems finding jobs on their own. They don't 
     advocate well for themselves and they don't have a lot of 
     skills,'' Severt said. ``Some of them can speak well. Some of 
     them have very good social skills. But they are retarded, and 
     they need help every step of the way. They just don't 
     adapt.''
       Hospital officials say the quality of the work isn't at 
     issue. ``They're very loyal employees,'' said Cmdr. Martie 
     Slaughter, the hospital's nutrition manager. ``I've only been 
     here for 2 years and they are like my family.''
       In similar competitions across the government, the in-house 
     bid has triumphed more than half the time, according to the 
     OMB. Even in the cases where the private sector has won, the 
     employees often have gone to work for the contractor. But the 
     scullery employees are at a decided disadvantage.
       ``If you are special needs, you have a great need for 
     greater supervision,'' Slaughter said. ``And we all know that 
     supervision costs money.''
       Jerry Leener, whose son Mike, 27, has worked at the 
     hospital for 8 years, said that even a White House focused on 
     the bottom line should realize there is little to be gained 
     by contracting out the work. Displaced employees would turn 
     to government entitlement programs, including Federal 
     disability payments, Medicaid and food stamps.
       ``If our kids lose their jobs, the Federal government is 
     still going to have to compensate them,'' Leener said. 
     ``Either way, it's going to be coming out of Federal funds. 
     So we haven't had a cost saving as it relates to these kids. 
     What's more, we've displaced them from their passion. They 
     love working here. They love being a part of this.''
       Military officials have been sympathetic but unmoved. 
     Slaughter said that early on in the process she asked about 
     getting a waiver for the workers, but none was forthcoming. 
     Over the last year, parents of some workers have written to 
     Navy officials and members of Congress seeking help, but with 
     no concrete results.
       As recently as 2 weeks ago, Navy officials said they were 
     still studying the situation. Parents of the workers grew 
     nervous as a December deadline loomed for the hospital to 
     submit its bid to keep the scullery jobs in-house. They were 
     told that a decision on whether a contractor would take over 
     could come as soon as March.
       Then on Oct. 2, 10 days after Van Hollen's visit to the 
     scullery and after inquiries by the Washington Post, Navy 
     officials passed the word internally that they had been 
     directed to temporarily stop working on the job competition. 
     ``The study has not been cancelled, but postponed until 
     further notice,'' an internal e-mail said.
       Parents said they were given a vague explanation that the 
     job competition had gone on longer than current law permits. 
     A provision in the recently passed 2004 Defense 
     Appropriations bill blocks new funding for single-function 
     job competitions that have exceeded 24 months, and 
     multifunction competitions that have exceeded 30 months. Navy 
     officials at the hospital did not respond to two requests for 
     more information about the decision.
       ``I have a suspicion that they were starting to feel 
     political pressure and decided to put it on hold, and that 
     maybe this thing would blow over,'' said Leener, who added 
     that he remains uncertain about whether his son's job is 
     safe. ``We took it as a big victory, believe me, but it's a 
     temporary one.''
       Trent Duffy, an OMB spokesman, said agencies may cancel job 
     competitions that jeopardize protected workers, such as 
     veterans or disabled people. ``It is permissible for agencies 
     to make that determination and cancel a competition because 
     these protected populations, these certain people, could 
     potentially lose their livelihoods,'' Duffy said. ``They 
     absolutely have that discretion under the law.'' Van Hollen, 
     who wrote a letter to Bush urging him to halt the study, said 
     he viewed the Navy's decision as little more than political 
     expediency. He still believes competitive sourcing is ``a 
     one-size-fits-all contracting-out policy that does not take 
     into account other important goals of the federal 
     government,'' he said.
       ``I still think it's an example of their policy run amok,'' 
     Van Hollen said. ``There's no doubt what happened here. You 
     want to applaud the Navy for reversing its decision, but you 
     can't have a member of Congress or a member of the press 
     visit every site where you've got . . . contracting out going 
     on with model programs.''

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