National ODAR Hearing Office

[aljsouth]

COSS has six year term; but the white house controls appointments of key deputies. If a COSS insists on staying with a hostile white house, then he or she has a nice office and no power to command.

As to the obvious ploy of making bargaining members "supervisors," I suspect some employer has tried this in the past and that there is some case law on it. I was not a labor lawyer but it seems on obvious move that would have been tried in the past.

[odarite]

Nothing like being an independent agency.

[hooligan]

The threat to make ODAR ALJs into supervisors has been a persistent rumor since the medicare process was turned over to HHS. It carried a secondary impact that it would eliminate the need for Group Supervisors.

It would seem that there is precedent in HHS that can be used to justify making ALJs into supervisors. In HHS, the model involved independent teams, not a single, temporary employee. The flaw in the National Hearing Office plan seems to be that the role of supervisor is not likely to carry any real management authority. If the structure is a sham, it is not going to hold up. However, if they do it right, they will probably be able to get away with it.

The really interesting question is whether this is actually a threat to ALJs or only to the ALJ union. The union has not earned a great track record. Management seems to view them more as an inconvenience rather than a major bargaining power. Congress seems unimpressed based upon the retirement legislation follies and OPM's unwillingness to move on wages without a pay-for-performance component. Working conditions get negotiated after the fact based on what management is willing to allow. Grievances are settled on a "we won't do it again" promise. Privileges that used to be accorded to the judges have been withheld because they are not in the collective bargaining agreement. The bargaining agreement has been rolled over twice without amendment even though there are significant flaws in the transfer clauses and elsewhere because the union is afraid they will lose more ground than they could gain. I need to be convinced that the battle over supervisor roles is harmful to judges and not just the union.

[kingfisher]

Hooligan, There have been several posts about a prior "unit system" in which the ALJ supervised his/her own unit of OHA/ODAR employees [AA, SCT, CT etc.] Was there an ALJ union during the "unit system" time frame?

[hooligan]

odarite said:

Commissioner Astrue was appointed to a 6 year term, thus the next election does not directly affect him. Whether he might resign early under a different administration only he knows.

I think you are wrong on this. Astrue was a controversial appointment who had been prevented from taking another post due to Senator Kennedy's efforts to block his appointment. The speculation was that in order to get him into the job, President Bush was going to need to make a recess appointment during the Easter break. After consultation with key political players, Astrue is said to have agreed that he would step down if the Democrats took over the White House. This accommodation avoided a bloody confirmation battle and all the parties seem relieved.

[hooligan]

kingfisher said:

Hooligan, There have been several posts about a prior "unit system" in which the ALJ supervised his/her own unit of OHA/ODAR employees [AA, SCT, CT etc.] Was there an ALJ union during the "unit system" time frame?

The unit system was mostly before my time, although my office uses a variation of that concept. It was replaced by the much maligned HPI reorganization. Both the union and HPI came in at about the same time (2001). The union has a longer history of functioning as an association, but with no real bargaining authority.

The unit system has a number of advantages for a judge in that it allows him to manage a group whose primary function is to support his/her cases. It also has a number of disadvantages, especially if the judge is saddled with marginal support staff. Management tends not to like the model since it reduces their flexibility in assigning work and they do not trust ALJs to take appropriate disciplinary action. Not all judges can adapt to being managers.

[odarite]

hooligan said:

After consultation with key political players, Astrue is said to have agreed that he would step down if the Democrats took over the White House. This accommodation avoided a bloody confirmation battle and all the parties seem relieved.

Hooligan, your sources of gossip, rumor hearsay and innuendo are far more interesting than mine. I haven't yet decided whether I want you to be on the money or not. At the moment, Astrue seems to be willing to leave things mostly alone. We sure as the heck cannot afford another Barnhart any time soon. And the trouble is, most commissioners have felt a duty to leave a lasting impression on the agency. It matters not whether that impression comes from the right or left, it is always terrible for those who need to get the job done.

[hooligan]

Odarite - I fully admit that my take on Asture is pieced together based upon rumor, hearsay and innuendo. However, it fits the known facts and I am comfortable with it as a working hypothosis.

You suggest that Astrue seems willing to leave things mostly alone. I am less sure of that. I guess things are going on below the radar that he feels we have no need to know until the shoe drops. He has killed the RO program and I would guess he is the key mover in the organization of the National Hearing Office. No one seems willing to name permanent Regional Chiefs in Regions I, II and III and now Region VIII is open and just announced. The openings are limited to AL-2s and there are not enough of them to go around. Something is strange in the shadows and I can not figure out what it is.

[aljsouth]

Unit system was long before the union. The genesis of the union is that when the agency was planning HPI the judge's association wanted to express its concern over the plan and was told, to the point, that the agency did not have to talk to the judges, because they were not a union. Judges had already long been stripped of any managerial or supervisory authority.

Of course the agency is always right and HPI was a tremendous success (sarcasm for those not familiar with ODAR). After that debacle the judges had unionized. This administration despises unions and the agency despises its employees not being subject to its completly arbitrary, and usually moronic, dictates.

Someone mentioned HPI as much maligned. Good heavens, HPI as "implemented" by the agency was a trainwreck. All employees have a right to suspect any plan of the Baltimorons. The "supervisory" duties are only a blatant attempt to not have to bargain under the labor law with judges and, now that AFGE has been reduced to rubble, to put all employees at the whim of the agency.

[wentwest]

I find the silence from Congress on this Falls Church megasite office pretty surprising. Somehow I thought the Congress people would want the ALJ's in their Districts, along with the jobs to support the ALJ's. You might note that ODAR has not announced hiring for support staff anywhere, and the number of support staff is quite large, about 4 to 1. Don't you think Members of Congress would want new Federal jobs in their districts, not at some secret location in the well employed suburbs of DC? It seems like, at this moment, the Baltimore bureaucracy and perhaps a political party not usually affiliated with the unemployed, union sympathetic workers in the Northern Midwest is trying to slip one past the Congress.

[cinderella]

WentWest- when you say Megasite- are you referring to this newly proposed 7 ALJ Video center? I don't know as I'd call that a megasite, per se- unless they are planning to expand it to the previously rumored 50 ALJs.

[odarite]

From a press release issued today:
As another key part of its plan, the Social Security Administration is establishing a National Hearing Center (NHC) so that a centralized cadre Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) can use video hearing technology to hear cases in the most backlogged parts of the country. The technology now is in place, and the recruiting process for the first NHC judges has begun. The agency also plans to hire about 150 ALJs and some additional hearing office support staff in the spring of 2008 – the only new hiring in FY 2008 as the agency continues to contract through attrition due to many years of congressional budget cuts far below what the President has requested.

www.socialsecurity.gov/pressoffice/pr/disability-backlog-pr.htm for the full text.

[doctorwho]

"The agency also plans to hire about 150 ALJs and some additional hearing office support staff in the spring of 2008 -- the only . . ."

I wonder what this means for an interview/class timeline. What do y'all think -- still a March class? My gut tells me it's a possibility, but a remote one. Maybe an April class.

[kingfisher]

doctorwho said:

"The agency also plans to hire about 150 ALJs and some additional hearing office support staff in the spring of 2008 -- the only . . ."

I wonder what this means for an interview/class timeline. What do y'all think -- still a March class? My gut tells me it's a possibility, but a remote one. Maybe an April class.

______________

It does suggest March 2008. But, that does not necessarily mean ALJ hopefuls won't get an offer until March. The OCALJ has, on at least one occasion that I know of, made advance offers to ALJ Candidates even though classes were not going to be held until 4 or 5 months later. Perhaps they will follow that model this time as well.