Gov't. Discrimination Bill Approved
By JIM ABRAMS
.c The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - Federal agencies would be held accountable for discrimination or retaliation against their workers under legislation sent to the president Tuesday.
The measure, approved 412-0 by the House, would force agencies to pay for settlements or judgments against them in whistle-blower and discrimination cases. Currently such payments come out of a government-wide general fund.
``This is a major step in our fight to end the insidious practice of discrimination and retaliation in our nation's federal work force,'' said Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, who sponsored the bill with House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis.
The No FEAR, or Notification and Federal Anti-Discrimination and Retaliation Act, also requires each federal agency to send an annual report to Congress listing the number of discrimination cases brought against the agency, the disposition of those cases and the number of agency employees disciplined.
Agencies would be required to notify workers about relevant discrimination and whistle-blower protection laws.
Sensenbrenner said the legislation stemmed from allegations of Environmental Protection Agency scientists last year that they had been the targets of reprisals after questioning agency policies.
He said a yearlong investigation had found a ``serious problem'' of discrimination in the federal government, with complaints filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission more than doubling in the 1990s. ``The federal government should be a model of the best practices for a fair and open work environment; that was not the case in the 1990s, but it must be the case in the 21st century.''
The House originally passed the bill last October. Tuesday's vote approved minor changes made by the Senate in passing the bill last week.
Information on the bill, H.R. 169, can be found at http://thomas.loc.gov 4-30-02
The Hill Newspaper
Lieberman caught between civil rights
groups and federal workers’ unions
By Betsy Rothstein
In a move that civil rights proponents denounced as underhanded, aides to Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) have asked the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) to approve proposed changes to a civil rights bill scheduled to
be marked up in the Government Affairs Committee on Thursday.
The dispute over the No Fear Act, which passed the House by unanimous vote of 420-O last October, has drawn controversial civil rights activist, the Rev. Al Sharpton, into what is becoming an increasingly contentious battle. The House-passed bill protects federal employees against workplace discrimination by forcing federal agencies to report to Congress how much they pay to victims of discrimination. The bill also requires federal agencies to pay settlement fees for federal workers who win judgments against their employers rather than from a Justice Department slush fund.
The NTEU, which, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, contributed 94 percent of its money to Democrats in the 2002 election cycle, has a specific interest in the bill. The labor union is concerned that fines it imposes on agencies would result in layoffs, and wants Congress to allow agencies to continue paying judgments from the Justice Department fund.
But the bill places Lieberman squarely between civil rights advocates who have supported him over the years, and federal employee unions, which have contributed to his coffers as well as to the Democratic Party.
But according to a spokesman for House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), the original sponsor of the bill, the labor union’s concerns are already addressed in the bill. The agencies will not be able to alter the salaries of employees, nor will they need to lay them off, Sensenbrenner’s spokesman explained. He added that the agencies will be able to ask congressional appropriators for settlement funds and also will be able to borrow the money from the Justice Department judgment fund. The aide said any language that tries to address the union’s concerns will amount to a poison pill.
But Sensenbrenner and civil rights groups may have reason to worry. Kurt Vondren, the congressional liaison for NTEU, said the union has been working closely with Lieberman. He described the relationship as “very positive,” adding, “We’ve talked to the staff repeatedly. The thrust of this is, there’s pretty much consensus.”
However, a civil rights group calling itself the “No Fear Coalition” had been trying for more than a year to meet with Lieberman, but had no success until Sharpton asked for a meeting with him two weeks ago and got one.
On March 5, after joining a rally in Freedom Plaza with about 400 people, Sharpton met with Lieberman along with members of the No Fear Coalition. Both men declared that their meeting was productive.
But Sharpton says he’s withholding judgment until he sees what Lieberman does with what he deems important civil rights legislation. “I thought it was a very candid meeting,” Sharpton told The Hill on Monday. “I thought the coalition expressed to him that he had dragged his feet, and I think it ended very productively.” But he added, “Time will tell. We intend to monitor.” When asked if he believes Lieberman is playing politics with the bill and if he found him to be a straight shooter, Sharpton replied, “I don’t know. This is my first time dealing with him, and we’ll see.”
Lieberman has denied he is playing politics with the bill, or that he is allowing it to languish for a possible advantage on a presidential trail in 2003. “I’m all for it,” Lieberman said last week, adding that he has received concerns from federal employee groups. “I’m going to try and move it as quickly as I can.”
Nevertheless, Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, a political scientist who chairs the No Fear Coalition, expressed skepticism at an “emergency” strategy session at the National Whistleblower Center in Georgetown on Monday. “All kinds of games are being played here,” she said. To put more pressure on Lieberman, the group discussed plans to fill the committee room Thursday with civil rights advocates, including possibly Sharpton. “We have not come this far to watch President Bush sign a gutted bill,” said Coleman-Adebayo. “He [Lieberman] is a man who is waffling right now.”
Arthuretta Martin, a No Fear Coalition member who once worked for the Department of Treasury and won a judgment against her managers for discrimination, agreed, “The bill is a major threat to the unions.” Added Blair Hayes, another coalition member, “No one wants to stand out as the one who blocks this bill.”
Members of the No Fear Coalition fear that the bill could be gutted with amendments. They also fear it could be destroyed entirely if it goes to conference. “Even well-meaning amendments can backfire,” said Douglas Hartnett, a coalition member and lawyer for the Government Accountability Project, a national nonprofit whistleblower law firm and policy group. Added Coleman-Adebayo, “The bill could be torn apart. Anything could
happen.”
Betsy Rothstein can be reached at
Betsyrhillnews@aol.com.
March 21, 2002
Senate panel passes anti-discrimination bill
The Senate Governmental Affairs committee passed a bill Thursday to change the way federal agencies settle lost discrimination cases and to give federal employees additional on-the-job protection against discrimination and retaliation in the workplace.
Under the legislation (H.R. 169), the "Notification and Federal Employee Anti-Discrimination and Retaliation Act of 2001" (No FEAR), legal settlements with federal employees in discrimination cases would be paid from the budget of the agency that employed them.
The current system requires payments to come from a government-wide settlement fund. Committee Chairman Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., said the current system "discourages accountability."
The No FEAR bill also requires that all federal employees be informed in writing about anti-discrimination policies and that federal agencies make annual reports to Congress on the status of any discrimination complaints, and post similar information on their Web sites.
The bill is in response to an August, 2000 discrimination case in which the Environmental Protection Agency was forced to pay a senior scientist $600,000, and similar class action suits against at least five other agencies. The House passed the measure on Oct. 2, 2001.
The Senate panel passed one amendment on a voice vote. The amendment would require the General Accounting Office to study the cost of the Department of Justice defending federal whistleblower cases, tighten the reporting requirements in the bill and make other technical changes.
Ranking Republican Fred Thompson of Tennessee said he had questions about the bill's effect on the settlement fund. He said he would work with Lieberman on additional GAO report language, but he was willing to support the legislation.
Senate committee passes amended No FEAR bill
By Drew Long, Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON (March 21) -- The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee unanimously passed the No FEAR Act today, but not without making some changes. The Notification and Federal Employee Antidiscrimination and Retaliation Act has been a hot-button issue for some lawmakers and the civil rights community. The bill, H.R. 169, passed the House last October, but languished
in the Senate until today.
Committee Chair Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., added four amendments to the bill to strengthen employee protections and to provide additional insight into agencies' equal employment opportunity data.
Spokeswoman Leslie Phillips told cyberFEDS® that Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., the original sponsor of the bill, approved the amendments. By adding the amendments, the course of the bill has been altered. If the committee and full Senate had passed the same bill it would have gone directly to President Bush for his signature. But Lieberman's amendments will require a second House vote. Phillips said Sensenbrenner's support of the amendments staved off the possibility of a conference committee on the bill.
Despite the bipartisan support for the amended bill, not everyone was
comfortable with the changes. The NAACP's Leroy Warren said he did not oppose the amendments, but the changes create additional delays that could "kill" the No FEAR Act just as it regains momentum. "They have not followed through on the bill's passage," Warren, chair of the NAACP's Federal Sector Task Force, told cyberFEDS®. "I'm happy [that the ommittee passed the bill], but I'm concerned. At least we're moving." Warren said he would now press Senate Majority Leader Thomas Daschle's, D-S.D., office to schedule a floor vote.
Phillips said the bill has not received much opposition in the Senate and could pass as a unanimous consent agreement. However, if one member objects to the bill, a full vote would be required. Upon passage by the Senate, Phillips said the bill would likely bypass the House committee stage and advance immediately to the floor for a full vote on the amendments. Under the terms of the original legislation, agencies would be required to reimburse the government-wide Judgement Fund out of their own budgets for payments made to cover discrimination or retaliation settlements and judgments.
Agencies would also have to notify employees of their rights under
applicable federal discrimination and whistleblower laws and publicly
disclose the number of discrimination and whistleblower cases filed.
Lieberman's amendments would:
* Prevent agencies from downsizing or cutting benefits or salaries to cover the cost of judgement payments. Agencies are also advised against taking "unfounded disciplinary action" against managers by violating their procedural rights.
* Improve the bill's reporting requirement, by mandating that agencies provide an analysis of their complaint data to Congress. The original bill simply requires agencies to submit information on their EEO complaints to lawmakers.
* Require the General Accounting Office to study the effect of
allowing EEO cases to proceed directly to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. A second study would be commissioned to determine what steps the Justice Department would take if it had to determine the cost of defending each whistleblower discrimination case.
* Make a technical change to correct the bill's language and update
its title to the No FEAR Act of 2002.
