Dear POPA Bargaining Unit Employees,
Once again USPTO management has refused to listen to its employees, and has instead chosen to declare war on you.
The agency has notified POPA of its intent to terminate our existing collective bargaining agreement and has submitted proposals for a new contract that slaps your professionalism in its face, reduces or eliminates most of your rights and protections, attempts to kill the union that defends you, and threatens the very integrity of the U.S. patent system.
When the agency so desperately needs to hire and retain a highly skilled workforce to improve quality and reduce pendency, it is incomprehensible why management would want to make the USPTO a less attractive place to work. Nevertheless, they have the right to terminate our existing contract that has served this agency well for twenty years.
Management's 2006 proposals are lengthy (93 pages) and their wording is often very subtle. Unfortunately, that very subtlety can mean the difference between an employee right or benefit or unfettered management discretion to do anything it wants.
POPA is carefully reviewing management's proposals and we will be preparing a summary for employees very shortly. A cursory review suggests that, while management has made some changes to awards and a few other things, most of the contract proposals appear essentially identical to the proposals management tried to put in place in 2005. View the agency's 2005 proposals, POPA's summary of the proposals and the February/March 2005 POPA Newsletter discussing the proposals.
WHAT will POPA do? POPA will do everything in its power to retain the good
working conditions that employees have enjoyed in the past. But this fight will
be very difficult. Management will do everything in its power to rush these
negotiations through as fast as possible, declare impasse and force us up to the
Federal Service Impasses Panel -- the same Panel that gave you the Quality
Initiatives! They will do this with the expectation that the Impasses Panel will
once again give management whatever it asks. Do not be fooled when management
tries to tell you, Congress, or the public that these proposals are only their
"opening bargaining position." They have already indicated to us that these
proposals are very close to their bottom line. This is a fight that we can win
only by standing united together and speaking with one voice.
WHAT can you do? Let POPA hear from you. You can provide feedback at www.popa.org. Tell us the things you like and do not like about these proposals. Share with us your ideas for alternatives to management's plans. Keep an eye on our web site for further developments.
Finally, please remember that when we stand united and speak with one voice, we will be heard. As Benjamin Franklin so eloquently stated: "We must all hang together or, most assuredly, we will all hang separately."