Congressional Research Employees Association

 
At the end of October, CREA was given proposed changes to CRS’s “Inquiries from the Public” guidelines. Management wanted to require that staff forward all inquiries to the Office of Communication, which would send out a neutral reply, declining any requests for information or assistance. The proposed guidelines did not give staff the discretion to ignore requests or delete e-mails.

CREA’s Board believed that staff need flexibility in managing these inquiries and voted to request bargaining on the issue. Management agreed to provide an additional option rather than requiring staff to forward the inquiries. As listed in today’s Tuesday Morning Update, the guidelines add the option of forwarding unwanted inquiries to COM, but retain the option to delete them. insider.crs.gov/tmu/issues/20091110.shtml#fromthedirector

CREA is glad to report success engaging management in seeking a mutually acceptable approach. The result was a flexible method to deal with non-congressional inquiries. We appreciate Management’s willingness to listen and respond to staff concerns.