Incentive Awards (Performance Awards)

Summary of the Situation

Union Grievances protesting DCMA managements unfair and unequal administration of the agency Incentive Awards Program were filed by AFGE Local 2128 (local coverage) and by AFGE Council 170 (agency wide coverage). 

AFGE Local 2128 went to arbitration and won.  The arbitrator found that DCMA had in fact violated Law, Rule, Regulation and the Collective Bargaining Agreement and he ordered DCMA to correct specific deficiencies in their administration of the Awards Program and to negotiate those changes with AFGE Local 2128.  DCMA refuses to implement the ordered improvements and they now refuse to negotiate these improvements with AFGE Local 2128. 

AFGE Council 170 avoided arbitration on these Incentive Awards violations when DCMA Headquarters signed up to a Grievance Settlement with AFGE Council 170.  DCMA Headquarters agreed to negotiate improvements to the Incentive Awards Program and they agreed to apply the outcome of those negotiations retroactive for CY 2002 Awards and to future Awards.  To date, DCMA Headquarters has failed and refuses to implement the agreed to terms of this Grievance Settlement Agreement.  DCMA Headquarters is pressing on with the unfair and unequal administration of the Awards Program.

The Details

AFGE Local 2128 filed a Union Grievance over DCMA's failure to administer its Incentive Awards Program on a "fair and equitable" basis way back in late 1998 and again in early 2000.  Essentially agency management was giving almost 100% of all supervisors and managers annual performance awards while something less than 50% of the workers received one.  Because of this, agency management was taking the lions share of the annual Awards Budget for themselves.  Supervisors and managers dip from the same Awards Budget as the workers they put in for awards do.  Since supervisors and managers control the Awards Budget and since they dip from it in competition with the workers they supervise in getting their own awards, this is viewed as a blatant "Conflict of Interest."  Talk about a situation where "the Fox is in charge of the Hen House", this is a prime example.  The agency had a "grade" weighted Table of Awards that gave the most Awards money to the higher grades, no matter what the value of the contribution. To top this "conflict of interest" situation off, the union proved during arbitration that agency management did not grant Performance Awards based on objective and measurable (or to any degree meaningful) awards granting criteria.  Agency management played favorites, they played loose and they pretty much gave and denied awards based on a whim.  Throughout the grievance process DCMA refused to acknowledge or resolve any of these Incentive Awards program problems and the Local was forced into final binding arbitration in order to obtain any degree of a remedy to this grievance.  During arbitration, the Local convinced the arbitrator of the validity of the merits to this grievance and he ruled in favor of the Local. Based on DCMA Incentive Awards data, the union proved that some agency officials had abused the annual awards and had received consecutive Quality Step Increases, other supervisors were inappropriately being granted Quality Step Increases and Sustained Superior Performance Cash awards on alternating years.  This just goes to show everyone that corporate giants aren't the only ones who benefit from self serving greed.  The difference is, American Taxpayers are footing this abuse.  The Local prevailed at arbitration and the arbitrator ordered the agency to correct several Incentive Award Program deficiencies, some of these requiring negotiation with the Local.  DCMA true to character and in an effort to deny justice or at least delay the inevitable, filed exceptions to this arbitration award with the FLRA.  In the mean time DCMA continued passing out Awards, business as usual.  About a year later, the FLRA issued its decision and the Arbitration Award was left almost totally intact.  This should have set the stage for improvements to the DCMA Incentive Awards Program, right?  Well DCMA has engaged in more foot dragging delay tactics.  First they wanted to negotiate "bargaining ground rules" which took time. Both parties had to exchange written proposals before they met for face to face bargaining.  Then when the time came for the Local and DCMA to meet face to face, DCMA decided they questioned the Local's authority to bargain on this issue with them because of a recent representational election that AFGE had won. More delays.  DCMA, the FLRA and AFGE are still discussing this and in the mean time it looks like DCMA has every intention of moving forward with issuing Incentive Awards, business as usual.

AFGE Council 170 (DCMA Headquarters level) impacting all DCMA Bargaining Unit Employees agency wide

Now if these Incentive Award problems at the Local level (Texas DCMA offices) aren't bad enough, AFGE Council 170 filed an identical Union Grievance at the DCMA Headquarters level on behalf of all DCMA bargaining unit employees agency wide.  In addition to the everyday problems associated with the agency failure to administer its Incentive Award Program on a fair and equitable basis as noted previously, DCMA Headquarters had engaged in bargaining with AFGE Council 170 over improvements to the DCMA Incentive Awards Program, but then had broken off from negotiations and unilaterally issued calendar year 2002 Awards, "business as usual."  DCMA Headquarters, true to form, refused to resolve this Union Grievance and AFGE Council 170 was forced to invoke arbitration.  Prior to arbitration, DCMA Headquarters and AFGE Council 170 entered into a Grievance "Settlement Agreement" wherein the agency agreed to return to the bargaining table to negotiate improvements to the DCMA Incentive Awards Program and to apply the outcome of those negotiations to the CY 2002 and future Awards.  DCMA met with AFGE Council 170 one time to negotiate improvements, but at the end of the day they called an impasse to the negotiations and then DCMA completely broke off from any further negotiations with AFGE Council 170 on the subject.  DCMA has now issues the same old "unfair and unequal" Awards Granting Guidance and is now pressing forward with issuing CY 2003 Awards, "business as usual."  AFGE Council 170 filed a second Union Grievance because the DCMA Awards Program is still not administered on a fair and equitable basis and because DCMA went back on their word when they violated the prior Grievance Settlement Agreement and broke off from negotiations.  After this second grievance was filed DCMA Headquarters didn't even grant the union the courtesy of responding and after the time limits for responding had elapsed, Council 170 invoked arbitration.  This second Council Grievance seems to have gotten derailed prior to arbitration when the DCMA Director and the President of Council 170 got their heads together.  We have not seen any "Settlement Agreement" on this second grievance, but the final outcome of the awards issue is now unknown and questionable.  Will the agency negotiate "improvements" to the Awards Program with Council 170 as they promised?  Will the outcome of those negotiations be applied retroactive for CY 2002 awards as DCMA promised?  My guess, DCMA has no intention of making any real changes to the DCMA Incentive Awards Program.

DCMA Headquarters Incentive Awards Improvement "Team"

Why do I say DCMA has no intention of making improvements to the Awards Program?  Well not long after our DCMA Deputy Director came onboard, DCMA Headquarters organized this DCMA Incentive Award Improvement "Team" composed of Union (NFFE, NAGE and AFGE), Headquarters and management representatives.  This Team was supposed to look at, study and propose out-of-the-box type ideas for improvements to the DCMA Incentive Awards Program.  The Labor Relations Officer for DCMA was put in charge of leading this Team into reaching its goal.  I was on this Team as one of the two AFGE representatives.  When we first began, we were told that DCMA Headquarters didn't have any hidden agenda, that they simply wanted to make the Incentive Awards Program work better.  Well it didn't take too many meetings or conversations to figure out that DCMA Headquarters did in fact have a plan in mind and they tried very hard to steer everyone into accepting and agreeing with it.  DCMA currently has a pass/fail performance rating system in place and it is impossible to draw distinctions between workers job performance for award purposes because everyone is rated as being "fully successful".  Past and current Awards Granting Criteria instructs supervisors to grant performance awards to only those who "exceed" all of their critical performance elements.  The problem with this logic is that there are no real meaningful measurements for attaining a rating of "fully successful" on any one job element, let alone is there any way an employee can "exceed" fully successful.  Claiming that someone "exceeded" one or more critical job elements is nothing but unsupported, unjustified and totally subjective hog wash.  Critical elements under this pass/fail performance rating system are all totally subjective and non-measurable.  DCMA Headquarters wanted to return to the old five (1 - 5) tier rating system where the individuals rated as being all 5s get the awards and those below that receive something less or possibly nothing at all (again on a whim).  The problem with this is the fact that it doesn't really matter if the system is pass/fail or five tier, without meaningful and/or measurable performance elements, ratings and awards are all subjective and they are based on a supervisor's whim.  When the union's raised objections and introduced other ideas for improving the DCMA Incentive Awards Program, like dividing the Incentive Awards Budget into Bargaining Unit and Non-Bargaining Unit shares based on population, DCMA Headquarters simply let this Team fade into oblivion never to be heard from again.  Splitting the Awards Budget would eliminate the "conflict of interest" that exists when supervisors dip from the same pot of money as the workers they supervise and grant awards to do.

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