On March 6-7, 2003, AFGE Council 260 President Peter Jeffrey, Local 2578 President Vernon Early, and Chief Shop Steward John Powers provided intensive training for all DC area representatives. The training was held at the Holiday Inn on the Hill, within the shadows of the Capitol dome and AFGE headquarters. Training was in accordance with Article 23, section 6 of our National Agreement.

Off-site training allowed reps to focus exclusively on improving our representational skills, working through the mechanics of the negotiated grievance procedure. All 18 DC Area reps received this intensive training.

A complete list of AFGE Council 260 reps is available on our Union homepage, http://afgecouncil260.org/direct.html.

AFGE takes a strong stand against the Administration’s determination to privatize as many as 1million federal employee jobs over the next several years. President George W. Bush has ordered federal agencies to compete, convert, or privatize 42,500 jobs in FY 2002, 85,000 jobs in FY 2003, and a cumulative total of 425,000 federal jobs by the end of calendar year 2004. The OMB directive (A-76) applies to all agencies. No one can assume that his/her job is safe. If the contractors and their supporters in Congress are not challenged, at least 425,000 federal employees are in danger of losing their jobs to private contractors over the next four years. NARA is not immune.

The Federal Activities Inventory Review (FAIR) Act requires Federal agencies to identify non-inherently governmental functions that are currently being performed by government employees. NARA has posted the list of our jobs potentially subject to contracting out at http://www.archives.gov/about_us/2002_commercial_inventory_chart.html. It is known as the "2002 Commercial Activities Inventory."

NARA bargaining unit employees should take a close look at this list. For example, records center operations (activity code T101) are identified as an activity currently performed by Federal employees and subject to the cost comparison or direct conversion requirements of OMB Circular A-76 and the FAIR Act (reason code B). There are 1,000 jobs at NARA in this most vulnerable category.

Other vulnerable categories are workers in our museum shops (53 jobs), reimbursable microfilm production in Kansas City, Fort Worth, and Seattle (15 jobs), Trust Fund financial support operations (8 jobs), and materiel management and motor vehicle operations (7 jobs).

To learn more about AFGE’s fight against the privatization of government jobs review the 2003 Issue Paper on this topic, http://www.afge.org/Index.cfm?Page=IssuePapers

Encourage your co-workers to join AFGE, there is definitely strength in numbers!

During March-April, the local’s Organizing Committee will sponsor three Lunch and Learn sessions.

• March 18 – AII - NHS, NHT, NHTO, NLNS, NWTS, NWTD, NWT
• April 1 – AII - NWCTC, NWCTF, NWCT, NWCTM

• April 22 – A1 - NWCTB, NWMD, NWCD, NWCR, NWCH

AFGE Local 2578 now has over 20 active members of the AFGE Political Action Committee (PAC). A meeting for those interested in joining the PAC is currently being planned for early-May at a location close to Archives II. Keep an eye on the newsletter for further details! To learn about the PAC, visit the Members Only section of the AFGE website from your home computer

At the January meeting of Local 2578, members requested that the Archives II Union office be open for regular office hours, 4 hours per day on workdays. The Council president and vice president are in the process of assigning Archives II reps a regular schedule for staffing the Union office. The schedule will be announced shortly.

At the February members meeting, Chief Shop Steward John Powers announced that many members have availed themselves of the library of resume building and employee assistance materials available in the Union office. Members should continue to utilize these materials in the job application process and consult with on-duty reps for additional assistance.

Monthly meetings of AFGE Local 2578 are held at 12:00 on the last Tuesday of each month in room 5220 of the National Archives at College Park, with teleconferencing connection to room 503 of the National Archives Building. The next meeting is Tuesday March 25, 2003.