After a Month, Just 900 DHS Employees Have Received COVID Vaccine
Some 53,000 agency employees are eligible for early access.
The Homeland Security Department is facing increasing pressure over its efforts to distribute COVID-19 vaccines, as employees say management is slowing the process and some lawmakers are taking issue with its prioritization plan.
DHS and the Veterans Affairs Department on Jan. 6 began a partnership to get frontline personnel vaccinated against the novel coronavirus, but that has so far yielded just 900 inoculations of Homeland Security employees out of its 230,000-person workforce. VA is accepting DHS employees for vaccinations at 21 facilities around the country, but the workers must be within a certain geographic area to be eligible and indicate they are interested. VA then reaches out to those individuals to schedule an appointment.
| Updated February 3, 2021
President Joe Biden continues to take an ax to former President Donald Trump’s labor policies, removing all 10 of his predecessor’s appointees to the Federal Service Impasses Panel.
The FSIP is supposed to resolve bargaining disputes between federal agencies and worker unions. But unions said Trump’s appointees were using the board to essentially rewrite collective bargaining agreements on less favorable terms for workers.
They applauded Biden’s decision to remove all of Trump’s appointees, saying the anti-labor tilt of the panel was part of a broader attack on bargaining rights for federal employees.
“The outgoing panel, appointed by the previous administration and stacked with transparently biased union-busters, was notorious for ignoring the law to gut workplace rights and further an extreme political agenda,” Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said in a statement.
By Natalie Alms
President Joe Biden has pushed out Trump nominees on a federal board charged with resolving disputes in union negotiations with agencies.
Biden requested that the 10 members of the Federal Services Impasses Panel resign yesterday. Those who did not resign were fired at the end of the day, FCW confirmed. The news was first reported by Government Executive
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The panel, part of the Federal Labor Relations Authority, has been the subject of lawsuits brought by unions alleging that the appointments of its board members were unconstitutional because they weren t Senate-confirmed. FSIP panel members are presidential appointees and the White House is well within its right to dismiss the previous administration s appointees, said Tony Reardon, national president of the National Treasury Employees Union, in a statement. The FSIP is supposed to be comprised of members who are qualified, experienced, fair and neutral. The Trump-appointed panel was none of those thi
Congress moves to expand feds’ paid leave options January 28 Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., led congressional efforts to guarantee 12 weeks of paid leave for federal employees to both take care of a new child and address personal or family medical needs. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP) Federal employees would be able to take paid time off for personal or family medical issues under new legislation introduced in the House Jan. 28. The Comprehensive Paid Leave for Federal Employees Act would offer 12 weeks each year for federal employees to use to care for an ill family member, their own serious medical condition or the needs of a family member soon to be designated to active duty military.
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email House Democrats Push for Expanded Paid Family Leave for Feds
A new bill would provide federal employees with 12 weeks of paid leave annually to care for themselves or a loved one, or in connection with a family member entering or returning from active military duty.
House Democrats announced Thursday that they will push to expand paid leave benefits for federal employees, hopeful that they can build on lawmakers success in instituting a paid parental leave program two years ago.
House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairwoman Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., introduced the Comprehensive Paid Leave for Federal Employees Act, which would provide 12 weeks of paid leave each year to all federal workers, including employees of the legislative branch and the U.S. Postal Service, to deal with a personal illness, to care for a family member suffering from illness, or in connecti