No Fear Coalition

For Immediate Release Contact: Dana J. Thompson
September 14, 2004 (202) 225-3816

Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee Helps No FEAR Institute Bestow �Whistle Awards� for Civil and Human Rights Abuse

Washington, DC � Today, the No FEAR Institute (NFI) will make the first of its scheduled annual announcement of the �No FEAR Whistle Awards� (NoFWA) for egregious violations of the civil and human rights of federal government employees. Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, Member of the House Judiciary Committee, has worked with the No FEAR Coalition to oversee the federal government�s track record of implementation of the No FEAR Act. Today, the Congresswoman, other Members of Congress, and victims of abuse will join the Coalition to announce the �winners� of the annual designation.

Congresswoman Jackson Lee was a primary coauthor of the Notification and Federal Employee Anti-Discrimination and Retaliation Act of 2002, or �No FEAR� Act, that was signed into law by President Bush on May 15, 2002, codified as Public Law 107-174. �This legislation was passed in order to bring immediate relief to federal government employees who have suffered from civil rights or other abuse in the workplace. It has been seven months since we last met to bring the issue of slow or no implementation to the forefront and there has yet to be a record of improvement. Today�s initiative is a smart way of continuing to highlight these deficiencies until they are adequately addressed� said the Congresswoman.

�The NFI Whistle Awards will be an annual means to educate America on the civil and human rights violations suffered by millions of employees on a daily basis,� added Congresswoman Jackson Lee. Of particular concern is the case of one of her former employees, a former detailee from the Department of Labor and current employee of that agency. After working for the Assistant Attorney General in Connecticut for two years and in the Department of Labor for 10 years, and in the Committee on the Judiciary under the Congresswoman, he was summarily demoted and unfavorably reassigned. The case is still under investigation, but Congresswoman Jackson Lee sees these facts as indicative of a culture of abuse within the government, and the No FEAR Act was passed to eradicate this problem.

�We are fortunate to have advocates such as NFI and Dr. Marsha Coleman Adebayo out on the �battleground� fighting for employees� rights. The abuses committed against the Black Farmers, several women travelers through the Customs Department, disabled claimants, and many other individuals whose cases have yet to be filed must be fully investigated and perpetrators must be made accountable. Especially at a time when this nation�s terror threat level is elevated, we must be able to trust the people for whom we work before we can feel secure. Transparency, accountability, and responsibility must be our priorities in implementing No FEAR,� concluded Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee.

GovExec

DAILY BRIEFING August 30, 2004
Discrimination issues on the agenda at EEOC conference

By Amelia Gruber
agruber@govexec.com

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on Monday kicked off its annual conference looking at challenges the agency faces in handling discrimination complaints filed by federal employees.

The four-day conference in Las Vegas features discussions of several issues high on interest groups' agendas, including implementing a law to hold managers more accountable for discrimination. Union representatives and
civil rights advocates said they hope EEOC also will use the meetings as a forum to discuss staffing problems, funding shortfalls and flaws in the case processing system.

One agenda issue is implementation of the 2002 Notification and Federal Employee Anti-Discrimination and Retaliation (No FEAR) Act. Agencies haven't put the law in place as intended, in part because the EEOC hasn't given them adequate guidance, said Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, the law's author. The act, which took effect last fall, requires agencies to use their own funds rather than a general Treasury account to settle discrimination and whistleblower lawsuits. No FEAR also requires agencies to report on the volume, nature and resolution of complaints.

The EEOC is in charge of giving agencies instructions on writing No FEAR reports, but has yet to issue final guidelines. Draft guidelines published in late January fail to establish a standard format for submitting No FEAR data, making comparisons across agencies difficult, said Leroy Warren, chairman of the Federal Sector Task Force of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. "The reporting is baffling," Warren said of the information published to date. "The [EEOC] needs to go back and deal with that." In the draft instructions, the EEOC also failed to ask agencies to report on informal harassment allegations, Coleman-Adebayo said. "That's when we begin to lose [track of] a lot of complaints," she said. The EEOC has several workshops on No FEAR scheduled for Wednesday. But Coleman-Adebayo said more attention may be needed. She said she would like the EEOC to host hearings and town hall meetings around the country to gather input on the law.

Civil rights advocates also said they'd like to see EEOC officials come up with a strategy for convincing lawmakers to grant adequate funding for fiscal 2005. Congressional appropriators have yet to settle on a final funding package for the agency, but have expressed reluctance to grant the Bush administration's request for $350.8 million. In fiscal 2004, the agency received $328 million, $7 million below the requested level.

The agency needs money to hire more investigators and staff for field offices, said Gabrielle Martin, president of the National Council of EEOC Locals No. 216, part of the American Federation of Government Employees.
EEOC officials should consider abandoning plans to establish a national contact center to handle customer inquiries, and devote more money to new hires, she said. Under current staffing levels, the EEOC is too often forced to dispose of cases using summary judgment, Warren said. Personnel problems also have sometimes forced the agency to transfer cases to field offices far removed from where they originated.

Stephen Spitz, an attorney at Kalijarvi, Chuzi & Newman, a Washington firm specializing in employment law, noted that the EEOC has transferred cases from the Cleveland and Washington, D.C., offices to an office in San
Antonio, Texas, which holds some hearings over the phone rather than in person. "It's really impossible to assess the credibility of somebody over the phone," Spitz said. "Communication in person is very different than
communication over the phone."

Jorge Ponce, co-chairman of the Council of Federal EEO and Civil Rights Executives, said EEOC officials should use this week's conference to rethink a controversial plan to expedite hearings. The plan, unveiled in April at the EEOC's Washington field office, allows two officials to review complaints and place them on one of three tracks: "red" for dismissal, "yellow" for summary judgment in favor of one party, or "green" for a hearing. All complaints, Ponce said, should at least get to go through the discovery process, where lawyers representing each side can question and gather evidence from the other. This document is located at http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0804/083004a1.htm