This week on Capitol Hill, Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) introduced a bill calling for an across the board suspension of public-private job competitions. The Correction of Longstanding Errors in Agencies Procurements Act (CLEAN UP Act), S. 924, also contains an in-sourcing provision urging agencies to bring contracted work back in-house to public employees.
Mikulski’s bill seeks to reform Circular A-76, the flawed competitive process by which government contracts are assigned, by leveling the playing field for federal employees competing with contractors for work. Furthermore, it would compel federal agencies to hire public employees for new work assignments, and bring back jobs that were contracted out without competition.
Under the bill, all public-private competitions will be put on hold until Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag, and the inspectors general of the five largest federal agencies, determine that agencies are implementing policies to level the playing field for their employees.
“Federal Employees deserve to be treated fairly,” said Mikulski. “This bill will be a major step toward cleaning up the contracting abuses of the last eight years and bringing jobs that were wrongly awarded to private contractors back to where they belong – – with our first-rate federal employees.”
“This bill represents a clean break from the Bush-era privatization policies that badly depleted the federal workforce and left the American taxpayer reeling with debt,” said NFFE National President Richard N. Brown. “We applaud Senator Mikulski for bringing this critically important issue to the floor, and will do all that we can to ensure its swift passage. Federal employees deserve nothing less.”