AFGE CONGRATULATES CHAIRMAN SKELTON AND BIPARTISAN REJECTION OF ANTI-INSOURCING AMENDMENT AT HOUSE MARK UP OF FY11 DEFENSE BILL

(WASHINGTON) – The House Armed Services Committee rejected, 37-23, an amendment to the FY11 National Defense Authorization Act that would have killed the Department of Defense’s (DoD) promising insourcing initiative. The amendment would have prevented any insourcing—even if the functions are inherently governmental and never should have been contracted out in the first place or could be performed more efficiently in-house—until 45 days after submission by the Government Accountability Office of a report that was designed by the amendment’s authors to be impossibly long and detailed.
The amendment would have raised costs to taxpayers and ensured that contractors would continue to inappropriately perform functions—such as preparing budgets, interpreting regulations, and evaluating and overseeing other contractors—that should be assigned to federal employees.
By voice vote, the Committee approved an AFGE-supported amendment sponsored by Representative Jim Langevin (D-R.I.) to prohibit the use of insourcing quotas, require the use of DoD’s own costing methodology when cost is the sole basis for insourcing, and ask that the department provide a report on functions that have been insourced.
“The strong leadership of House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) in support of Secretary Robert Gates’ historic effort to rebalance the department’s contractor and civilian employees has produced a great victory for the warfighters and the taxpayers,” said AFGE National President John Gage. “We single out for praise several particularly noteworthy members of the bipartisan majority in favor of more sensible sourcing policies, in addition to Representative Langevin, including Representatives Rob Andrews (D-N.J.), Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas), Solomon Ortiz (D-Texas), Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), Martin Heinrich (D-Nev.), Jim Marshall (D-Ga.), Frank LoBiondo (R-N.J.), and Mike Rogers (R-Ala.),” he added.

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The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) is the largest federal employee union, representing 600,000 workers in the federal government and the government of the District of Columbia.