Seeker of Truth
06-01-2003, 09:24 AM
OMB Details 'Outsourcing' Revisions
Unions Denounce New Rules Aimed At Competition
By Edward Walsh
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 30, 2003; Page A21
The Bush administration announced yesterday a long-awaited policy to speed up a process to open up 425,000 federal jobs to competition from private companies to do the work that federal employees now perform.
Office of Management and Budget Director Mitchell E. Daniels Jr. and Angela Styles, administrator of OMB's office of federal procurement policy, unveiled the revised policy, which they said was designed to shorten and streamline the process to require competition for government work and eventually save taxpayers' money.
But officials of federal employees labor unions denounced the changes, saying they granted far too much discretion to government managers and would be aggressively used by the administration to pursue President Bush's agenda to "outsource" as much government work as possible to private contractors.
"Given this tremendous discretion, they will exercise this discretion in a way that favors contractors and pushes the work right out the [government agency] door," said Jacqueline Simon, public policy director for the American Federation of Government Employees.
Administration officials denied that Bush's goal was to farm out government workers' jobs to private companies. They said that Bush's goal is to encourage competition and that federal workers could very well win the contests and keep their jobs.
More @ washingtonpost.com (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55900-2003May29.html?referrer=emailarticle)
Unions Denounce New Rules Aimed At Competition
By Edward Walsh
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 30, 2003; Page A21
The Bush administration announced yesterday a long-awaited policy to speed up a process to open up 425,000 federal jobs to competition from private companies to do the work that federal employees now perform.
Office of Management and Budget Director Mitchell E. Daniels Jr. and Angela Styles, administrator of OMB's office of federal procurement policy, unveiled the revised policy, which they said was designed to shorten and streamline the process to require competition for government work and eventually save taxpayers' money.
But officials of federal employees labor unions denounced the changes, saying they granted far too much discretion to government managers and would be aggressively used by the administration to pursue President Bush's agenda to "outsource" as much government work as possible to private contractors.
"Given this tremendous discretion, they will exercise this discretion in a way that favors contractors and pushes the work right out the [government agency] door," said Jacqueline Simon, public policy director for the American Federation of Government Employees.
Administration officials denied that Bush's goal was to farm out government workers' jobs to private companies. They said that Bush's goal is to encourage competition and that federal workers could very well win the contests and keep their jobs.
More @ washingtonpost.com (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55900-2003May29.html?referrer=emailarticle)