GAO Employees to Vote on Union Organizing

WASHINGTON — Employees of Congress' watchdog agency, including those working at a branch in Atlanta, will decide late Wednesday whether or not they want union representation for the first time in their agency's 86-year history.

Employees at the Government Accountability Office will vote on whether to join the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, the AFL-CIO-affiliated labor union organizing the union effort. Elections at the GAO's headquarters are scheduled for Wednesday; ballots for the agency's 11 field offices were mailed Aug. 23.

GAO employees began lobbying for a union after Comptroller General David Walker in 2006 restructured the agency's compensation policies, moving toward a performance-based pay system. The change was met with complaints that analysts weren't given enough say in the restructuring and that the decisions were not transparent enough. Analysts also complained to congressional oversight committees that they were being denied cost-of-living raises despite promises that they would receive them.

Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, the ranking member of the Senate subcommittee that oversees the GAO, applauded Walker at a recent hearing for trying to transform the culture at GAO. He said the results of the vote – expected to be available by midnight – will be a referendum on how well employees have accepted the new pay system.

"It'll be interesting to see just whether or not we're hearing from disgruntled people who didn't like what was happening or whether there's a general feeling the system is not working for them," he said.

Atlanta's branch office is the largest of GAO's 11 field offices. It has 110 employees eligible for the union, according to Jamie Horwitz, a spokesman for the union. San Francisco, Boston, Denver, Seattle, Chicago, Los Angeles, Norfolk, Huntsville, Dayton and Dallas also house field offices.

Dan Hauser, an analyst in the Dayton field office who lives in West Chester, said Dayton employees hope a union will give them more protection by providing a binding employment contract. The Dayton field office conducts research on Air Force programs as well as federal contract issues.

"I don't know anybody who has issues with pay for performance," he said. "That's apple pie — who possibly could have concerns about that? But I believe the concerns are about how it's being implemented."

Angela Miles, a Washington, D.C.-based analyst who is in the process of transferring to Atlanta, said she will also vote for the union.

"The union for me is a way to protect the benefits at the wonderful job I've had," she said.