Congressional Research Employees Association

CRS management has announced that implementation of the new authoring system will begin December 1, 2008. CREA wants to hear about your experiences with the new system.

CREA officers, stewards, and board of governors received a briefing about the new system from management on Wednesday, November 18, 2008. A number of concerns were raised, some of which may increase the amount of time it takes to write and publish written products, contribute to missed deadlines, compromise the utility of our products, or raise frustration levels. Management has assured CREA that staff will not be held accountable for problems attributable to the new system.

Concern was also raised about authors’ phone numbers and e-mail addresses being featured prominently on all CRS Reports. CREA has agreed on a Memorandum of Understanding with management reserving its right to request to bargain this issue through March 2009.

CREA’s hope is that the transition will succeed with minimal difficulties. However, it is our responsibility to monitor the situation and hold management to their assurances.

Some examples of the kind of problems that may affect those working in the new system are listed below.

• Programs crashing or locking, resulting in lost work; systems crashing, delaying or preventing access.
• Excessive system slowness.
• Files or applications associated with the system becoming corrupt.
• Backlogs in publishing or conversion.
• Authors unable to include useful materials in reports (because insertion methods used in the old system won’t translate to the new).
• Publication issues, including whether products will reliably be available for client searching.
• No instructions or template for authoring CD memos.

Please share your experiences with us. If the issue of phone numbers and e-mail addresses creates problems for you, please document them. Register and make comments below, or communicate with your CREA representatives, by phone, e-mail, in writing, or in person.