LIMITS ON CASH AWARDS TO FEDERAL EMPLOYEES LOOSENED
Hope you did not miss Eric Yoder’s piece in a recent Washington Post about how the outgoing White House Administration just told agencies that they can and should increase the funding of their employee award programs. This should fire up some bargaining table conversations as unions seek to find out what changes may result and LR Specialists move to fend off any bargaining demands. It will be interesting to watch how agencies distribute this extra cash, assuming their appropriations are not already so low that they are running bake sale to keep the lights on. Does this mean a bigger addition to the bonuses for managers than the unit employees who produce the work for them–or even to some segments of the bargaining unit and not others? Of course, it will be even more interesting to see whether this financial authority is canceled late in the day on January 20th, 2017 as part of making American Great Again. Imagine how “GREAT” that will be. (That is a bit of sarcasm incase anyone is confused. Given that feds are already paid about 34% less than their similarly situated private sector counter-parts, boosting performance awards money seems like a perfect way to close that gap given political realities.)