Issues That USCIS Engages in Relation to Promoting Collective Bargaining - Essay Example

? Introduction: As a federal agency, USCIS has to allow its employees to join a labor union. This paper analyzes three policies, or issues that USCIS engages in relation to promoting collective bargaining. This paper also analyzes the agencies policies in regard to privatization of its services, and the issues that emerged. This paper also analyzes the pension policies of the organization, and it assesses its performance and productivity evaluation programs. It also gives a recommendation of how the agency can improve its performance and productivity evaluation programs. This paper has a conclusion, which is a summary of the major points contained in it. Agency and Unions: The USCIS recognizes the Federation of American Government employees (AFGE) as a union that offers collective bargaining services to all employees of the organization who are not professionals. However, USCICS does not recognize senior management of the organization, professional employees, and any employee who is excluded from such kind of coverage by the labor relations statute, the Civil Service Reform act, and chapter 71 of the 5 USC, as part of the employees who are under the protection of AFGE (Tischauser, 2012). On this basis, the agreement between AFGE, and USIS to recognize the labor union as the exclusive agency responsible for protecting unprofessional employees from the organization was certified by the labor relations authority. This was in case number WA-RP-06-0008 and this was for the purposes of promoting the principles of collective bargaining between the agency, and its junior employees (Bjorklund, 2012). The USCIS under the guidance of 5 USC 7106 has created a policy whereby in any negotiation with labor unions, the agency will not compromise on the following areas of its operations (Homeland Security, 2012). i. In the determination of its budget, mission, internal security practices, number of employees, and the organization of the agency. ii. Hiring of employees, their retention, disciplinary actions, and their suspension from service due to their inefficiencies in service delivery. iii. In taking actions for purposes of carrying out the objectives of the organization during situations of emergencies. The USCIS while negotiating with AFGE agrees to allow the labor union to have a representation in any formal discussions between the representatives of the agency, and the unprofessional employees. This is irrespective of the number of employees under consideration. These formal meetings will occur if there are grievances amongst the various employees of the organization, and as such, the presence of labor officials will be needed (Doak, 2012). The agency will also supply the union with an advance notice of the impending meeting, and the documents containing the grievances of the unprofessional employees of the agency. On this basis, the agency would seek the corporation of AFGE in resolving their various disputes with its unprofessional employees. Agency and Privatization: One of the policies of the agency is to privatize some federal support positions that are found within the USCIS offices in New York, Newark, Los Angeles, and Miami. The functions that USCIS plans to privatize include the offices that deal with the processing and handling of asylum claims. In as much as the senior leadership of USCIS advocates for the privatization of these offices, junior and middle level employees are against the privatization of these kinds of offices. This is because they argue that these offices are very sensitive, and they require a high degree of confidentiality. On this basis, privatizing the functionalities of offices that deal with asylum could risk the lives of asylum seekers (UCSIS, 2007). This is because the information concerning the asylum seekers could fall into the wrong hands, and hence endanger the person seeking asylum, and his or her family. Furthermore, middle level and junior employees argue that the support staff found at the federal asylum offices perform a variety of roles that relate to the efficient administration of the US Nationality and Immigration Act. They also help to ensure that America is safe through performing a variety of criminal database check. On this basis, the functions all the functions performed by the asylum office belongs to the Federal government, and not the private sector. One of the policies of the agency is to observer the FAIR inventory act. This is a policy that the Federal government insists that all its Federal Agencies must meet. According to this policy, USCIS has to notify the Federal government of all its activities which are commercial in nature. This is for purposes of getting permission from the Federal government to go on with the commercial activity under consideration (Tischauser, 2012). For example, in 2003, USCIS wanted to privatize some of the information functions carried out by 1100 employees. It has to inform the Federal government of this policy. However, the senate voted against this policy, noting that the functions of USCIS were very sensitive to be left in the hands of the private sector. The jobs that USCIS wanted to privatize were the investigative assistant jobs, the information officer, and the contact representative. In a bid to reduce its budget, USCIS normally privatize some of its functions, which includes when the organization needs to build new offices, or operation units. These services are always outsourced to various contractors, who have the skills, and the necessary knowledge that will help in carrying out these constructions (UCSIS, 2007). On this basis, the organization normally contracts its capital expenditures to outside parties. It has to report these contracts to the federal government, under the FAIR inventory act. Employees Pension Plan: One of the retirement’s benefits that the agency offers is the thrift savings plan. This is a retirement and savings plan that does not only target employees of USCIS, but it also targets all Federal employees who are on uniform. The thrift savings plan enables an employee to make a monthly contribution to his savings account during his or her working period. This money will accumulate over a period of time, and after his or her retirement, an employee of USCIS will manage to access these funds. The agency has a civil service retirement system (CSRS) whereby an employee pays 7 to 8% of their salaries to CSRS, and USCIS pays the other contributions to the system. These contributions are always tax free, and an employee enrolled in these system, does not have to pay for the social security number. However, an employee enrolled in this system must pay the medicare tax. This system also allows an employee to earn the social credit while working for the agency. The social credit gives a provision of the future retirement benefits of an employee at USCIS. As a federal agency, USCIS enrolls its employees to the federal employees retirement program (FERS). Under this program, an employee must pay for the thrift savings plan, the social security, and the basic benefit plan. Under this system, the USCIS deducts a certain percentage of an employee’s salary, and takes it to the social security account, and the basic benefits account. However, USCIS will not deduct the salaries of an employee for purposes of taking it to the thrift savings plan. This will only depend with the willingness of an employee to enroll for this program. After the retirement of an employee, he or she will receive annuity payments for every month that the employee under consideration is alive. Productivity and Performance Evaluation: The agency has an effective method of accessing its productivity and the performance of its employees, and the various programs that the agency offers. As a Federal agency, the agency is accountable to the Federal government and the senate, as such, it must make periodic reports to the federal government on its achievements, policies, finances, and employees databases. To effectively carry out this function, the agencies normally hire independent auditors and those from the government’s budget office to carry out an independent audit of the effectiveness of the organizations policies and programs (Bjorklund, 2012). This helps in identifying the programs that are not effective in achieving its objectives, the gaps in employee’s skills, and the manner in which the agency used its finances to carter for its own objectives. The agency also has its internal systems of increasing the productivity of its workforce, and the various programs that it has initiated. For instance, the organization sets up the targets in which a variety of its employees have to meet in order to be counted as efficient in the manner in which they carry out their duties (Homeland Security, 2012). The agency also has an enrollment dairy that keeps track of the performances of its employees, the time they attend duties, their respective roles, and the skills under their possession. This helps the organization to plan on the best methods that it can use to motivate its employees, and thereafter achieve maximum output from them. Its feedback programs are also effective in ensuring that the various employees of the organization are efficient in the manner in which they conduct their duties. Recommendations for Improving Productivity and Performance: The following are the three major methods in which the organization can use to improve the productivity and performance of its programs and that of its employees (Collins, 2009). Initiate a management policy whereby all employees of the organization will make a contribution on the various policies that the organization needs to initiate. Before initiating a program, the organization needs to conduct a pilot test on whether the program under consideration is effective in meeting the objectives of the company, or not. This is by choosing a small area of the organizations operations, and initiating the program in the area, after which the organization observes the efficiency of the program under consideration. Developing programs that will help in identifying the various talents within the organization, and developing the talents identified for leadership positions, or for other important roles of the organization. This will help in retaining its vital human resource pool, as it is a motivational tactic. Conclusion: In conclusion, this paper manages to denote that USCIS recognizes the importance of labor unions, and hence it seeks to create a positive relation with AFGE, a labor union that represents its non professional employees. This paper manages to identify the various policies that guide the organization, in relation to the aspect of collective bargaining. Under the pension scheme policies, this paper identifies the thrift savings plan, the civil service retirement scheme, and the employees retirement program as the major schemes that the organization. This paper manages to explain the efforts of the agency in privatizing their services, some of which has failed. This is because the congress rejected such moves. This paper manages to effectively talk about the performance and productivity evaluation process of the agency, and it gives out three recommendations that the agency needs to pursue for purposes of improving their work place efficiency. References: Bjorklund, R. (2012). Immigration. New York: Marshall Cavendish Benchmark. Collins, D. (2009). Essentials of business ethics: creating an organization of high integrity and superior performance. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons. Doak, R. S. (2012). Homeland security. New York: Scholastic. Homeland Security,. (2012). U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services' progress in transformation. New York: Sage Publishers. Tischauser, L. V. (2012). Jim Crow laws. Santa Barbara, Calif.: Greenwood. UCSIS. (2007). Civics and citizenship toolkit: a collection of educational resources for immigrants (Rev. ed.). Washington D.C.: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Institute of Museum and Library Services, U.S. Govt. Printing Office: Read More