ML20058K305
| ML20058K305 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 12/07/1993 |
| From: | NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| REF-10CFR9.7 NUDOCS 9312150114 | |
| Download: ML20058K305 (86) | |
Text
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMIS SION
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PERIODIC BRIEFING ON EE0 PROGRAM T... ' p :..
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DECEMBER 7, 1993 i
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EAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
r0LRY REPORTERS A4D TRANSCRIBERS 1323 Phode Island Avenue, Northwest
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DISCLAIMER l
l This is an Anofficial transcript of a meeting of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission held on December 7,
- 1993, in the Commission's office at one White Flint North, Rockville, Maryland.
The meeting was open to public attendance and observation.
This transcript has not been reviewed, corrected or edited, and it may contain inaccuracies.
The transcript is intended solely for general informational purposes.
As provided by 10 CFR 9.103, it is not part of the formal or informal record of decision of T
the matters discussed.
Expressions of opinion in this transcript do not necessarily reflect final determination or beliefs.
No pleading or other paper may be filed with the Commission in any proceeding:as the result of, or addressed to, any statement or argument contained herein, except as the Commission may authorize.
9 a
HEAL R. GROS $
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1 UNITED STATES OF AhERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION j
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PERIODIC BRIEFING ON EEO PROGRAM i
i l1 PUBLIC MEETING l
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'l Nuclear Regulatory Commission j
One White Flint North Rockville, Maryland l
l Tuesday, December 7, 1993 The Commission met in open
- session, pursuant to notice, at 10:00 a.m.,
Ivan
- Selin, Chairman, presiding.
i COMMISSIONERS PRESENT:
IVAN SELIN, Chairman of the Commission KENNETH C. ROGERS, Commissioner E.
GAIL de PLANQUE, Commissioner
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2 STAFF SEATED AT THE COMMISSION TABLE:
SAMUEL J.
CHILK, Secretary WILLIAM C.
PARLER, General Counsel l
JAMES TAYLOR, Executive Director for Operations
' i j
PAUL BIRD, Director, Office of Personnel l
VANDY MILLER, Director, SBCR LAURA
- GERKE, Federal Women's Program Advisory Committee i
1 MARIA LOPEZ-OTIN, Hispanic Program Advisory Committee I
I LARRY PITTIGLIO, Joint Labor-Management EEO Advisory Committee JAMES
- THOMAS, President, Chapter
- 208, National Treasury Employees Union SHARON CONNELLY, Committee on Age Discrimination i
CARDELIA MAUPIN, Blacks In Government Committee l
MARK AU, Asian-Pacific American Advisory Committee ELAINE TORO, Affirmative Action Advisory Committee I
JAMES MILHOAN, Regional Administrator, Region IV
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THOMAS MURLEY, Director, NRR EDWARD HALMAN, Director, Division of Centracts and
.i Property Management, Office of Administration i
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1 l
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P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S i
2 10:00 a.m.
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CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Good morning, ladies and f
?
4 gentlemen.
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5 This morning the Commission will receive t
6 a set of briefings and discuss the status of our Equal i
7 Employment Opportunity Program.
As - most of you 8
already know, the agency's Executive Director for
-i 9
Operations is required by the Energy Reorganization 10 Act of 1974 to report to the Commission twice a year l
i 11 on problems, progress and the status of the NRC's EEO 12 efforts.
Although not required by law, it has been 13 our practice also to discuss issues identified by the I
i 14 employee EEO advisory committees and in recent years
.j 15 to hear from a representative of the National Treasury 16 Employees Union at these semi-annual meetings.
1 17 Our last meeting on the subject was held j
-l 18 last February, February 28th.
19 Today's meeting will more or less follow i
20 the format we've adopted for the last two EEO i
i 21 meetings, except that we'll also be discussing-EEO 22 issues from the office management perspective when in j
23 a
second panel two of our headquarters office 1
24 directors and one regional administrator join us at 25 the table.
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I'd also like to point out that 2
immediately after the program is concluded we will be I
3 conducting an award ceremony honoring the agency's'EEO 4
4 counselors who really are the front line troops in the 5
EEO Program and don't receive the recognition and l
6 really just the knowledge on the part of the i
7 Commission staff that they deserve.
All of you here e
i 8
are invited to remain for the ceremony, which will 9
take place right in this room.
10 At our last EEO meeting on February 28th, 11 I noted that we had both the commitment and the i
12 programs in ' place to use and develop our human 4
13 resources in the best interest of the agency and of 14 our people.
I continue to believe that this is the I
l 15 case, based on my reading of the briefing material, l
16 copies of which are available in the room, and based 17 on my own contacts with people at various levels in I
l 18 the staff.
Nevertheless, the effort to reduce the E
19 size of government announced by the President since i
i 20 our last EEO meeting has introduced an element of
[
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21 uncertainty in our long-range personnel planning. with j
22 that in our equal employment portion of the planning.
23 At least in part, our purpose today is to 24 explore how these changing circumstances have affected f
L i
25 our EEO efforts and how we plan to adjust to them.
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1 Before I turn the meeting over to the 2
Executive Director for Operations, colleagues, did you i
3 have any -- Commissioners?
4 Mr. Taylor?
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5 MR. TAYLOR:
Good morning.
6 Before I provide some observations on our 7
EEO Program, I would note that with me at the table i
8 are Paul Bird, the Director of Personnel, and Vandy 9
Miller, our new Director of the Office of Small and 10 Disadvantaged Business Utilization and Civil Rights.
k 11 They will assist me this morning.
12
- Vandy, would you be good enough to 13 introduce the EEO advisory committee chairpersons and 14 the President of the local chapter of the NTEU?
15 MR. MILLER:
Thank you, Mr. Taylor.
16 Mr.
- Chairman, Commissioner
- Rogers, 17 Commissioner de Planque, it gives me great pleasure to 18 introduce the committee chairpersons at the table and 19 also the union president.
20 Seated at the table beginning at my far 21 left is Elaine Toro, Affirmative Action Advisory 22 Committee; Mark Au, Asian-Pacific American Advisory 23 Committee; Cardelia Maupin, Blacks in Government 24 Committee; Sharon
- Connelly, Committee on Age 25 Discrimination.
Immediately to my right, just on the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W-l (202J 2344433 WASHINGTON O C. 20005 (202) 2344433 i
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1 other side of Mr. Bird, we now have Laura Gerke who is t
2 the Federal Women's Program Advisory Committee; Maria 3
- Lopez-Otin, Hispanic Program Advisory Committee; Larry 4
Pittiglio, Joint Labor-Management EEO Advisory 5
Committee; and lastly but not least, Mr. Jim Thomas',
6 President of the local Chapter 208 of the National 7
Treasury Employees Union, 8
CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Thank you.
l l
9 MR. TAYLOR:
I would note that prior to l
l 10 the previous two EEO Commission briefings, I sent the 11 Commission an information paper on both the status and 12 issues of our EEO programs.
I again provided the i'
13 Commission with such a paper in advance of today's 14 meetings and copies of this paper have been made t
I 15 available to employees.
In this paper I described six 16 affirmative action objectives in which the staff has i
i 17 been focusing.
I also provided demographic data i
i 18 depicting work force trends at the NRC.
Staff 19 responses to two previous Commission staff 20 requirements memoranda were part of this paper and I i'
21 also included the statements from the seven EEO 22 advisory committees.
23 We have responded to many of the I
24 recommendations and issues raised by the committees in 25 this paper and we have also presented statements by NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS i
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two office directors and a regional administrator who
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2 later will be joining us at the table this morning to 3
discuss EEO initiatives in their offices.
t 4 1 Another occurrence since our last meeting 5
was the release of the 1990 Census availability data l
6 by the EEO Commission. A comparison of this data with 7
statistics about the NRC reflects improvement at the
{
8 NRC in many categories.
We will continue with the 9
initiatives described in our paper to the Commission 10 I in order to address the areas of under representation 11 at the NRC as compared with the Census availability 12 data.
l 13 Now I would like to summarize the key 14 points in our Commission paper.
Since our last 15 meeting in February, an executive order was issued, 16 which the Chairman has mentioned, that directed 17 agencies to eliminate not less than four percent of 18 their positions by the end of fiscal year '95, to take l
19 at least ten percent of these reductions at grades 14 20 and above.
Subsequent to this order, the President 21 issued a memorandum calling for an additional eight 22 percent reduction in FTE by the end of fiscal year 1
i 23
'99.
These constraints in our ability to hire and our 24 ability to promote employees to grades 14 and above 25 has somewhat
' owed the pace of our EEO progress, but i
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1 they have challenged us to employ creative strategies
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2 to keep our program moving.
3 The initiatives that I
previously 4
mentioned, as noted in our paper, fall under six broad 5
areas.
6 First, we have put concerted effort into 7
enhancing opportunities for recruiting Hispanic j
8 employees in all occupations.
- Second, we have focused efforts on 9
i 10 enhancing opportunities for recruiting women and 11 minorities in professional positions.
l 12 Third, we are working on expanding the 13 pool of women and minorities eligible for supervisory, i
14 management and executive positions.
15 Fourth, we're trying to attract and retain l
16 disabled employees.
j l
17
- Fifth, we are providing an improved i
18 training and development program, including rotational 19 opportunities, to enhance job performance and support I
20 affirmative action.
21
- Sixth, we are improving communication 22 about EEO opportunity and affirmative action 23 objectives, as well as heightening awareness about EEO 24 and evaluating.the progress that we have made.
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1 areas have been discussed in detail in our paper, but i
2 I would like to highlight three of these.
A strategy-3 used this year to prepare employees for supervisory, 4
management and executive positions was to offer two 5
developmental programs, the supervisory development 6
program for preparing GG-14s and 15s for first line i
7 supervisory positions, and the SES candidate 8
development program for identifying and training GG-9
- 14s, 15s for SES positions.
The demographics of 10 selectees for both programs are presented in our-11 paper.
12 A strategy employed for gauging attitudes 13 about EEO practices in the agency was to administer an 14 all-employee survey that asked questions about work 15 experiences, including EEO-related issues.
About 55 L
16 percent of our employees responded.
Few of these I
17 respondents felt that they had been discriminated 18 against.
The results of this survey are discussed l
19 briefly in our paper and are being distributed to all 20 employees.
-j 21 A strategy we have just initiated for l
i 22 handling sexual harassment complaints or questions 1
23 includes an advice and counseling hotline to be l
l 24 available to all employees.
This toll free line can t
25 be accessed from home or other locations away from the i
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- 10.
I work place to afford
- privacy, anonymity and J
2 confidentiality.
We will evaluate the effectiveness t
3 of this hotline after an initial six month period.
4 With regard to our sexual harassment prevention policy i
5 and guidance, we have received helpful input from the 6
Commission and are now in the process of proceeding to 7
print and distribute our brochure on this subject.
8 I will now turn the meeting back over to 9
Vandy to give a brief summary from his perspective 10 before turning to the Commission for their comments.
11 Vandy?
12 MR. MILLER: Thank you again, Mr. Taylor.
13
- Again, Mr.
Chairman and Commissioner i
-i 14 Rogers and Commissioner de Planque, it gives me great 15 pleasure to address the Commission on our civil rights 16 and EEO programs.
I must say in my first five months 17 as Acting Director of the Office of Small Business and l
18 Civil Rights and not permanent director, I have not i
l 19 had any dull moments.
I have gotten a lot of support 20 from management and the various EEO committees and l
21 counselors in carrying out our civil rights and EEO l
22 efforts.
i 23 Particularly noteworthy is the close 24 working relationship which exists between this office 25 and the Offices of Personnel and General Counsel.
On
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balance, I believe we have and are continuing to make l
2 i
progress to ensure that all employees are _ treated 3
l fairly in an environment that promotes an equal 1
[
opportunity for success.
4 5
In my discussion this morning I would like 6
to cover briefly the following areas:
the EEO 7
committees partnership with the Office of Small 8
Business and Civil Rights and Personnel; the role of 9
the EEO counselors; the NRC Civil Rights and EEO I
10 Program; EEO training opportunities; and one future 11 initiative.
I 12
- First, the EEO advisory committees.
13 Representatives whom you see seated before you this 14 morning are continuing to work in partnership with the 15 Office of Small Business and Civil Rights and the 16 Office of Personnel to identify and surface issues and 17 recommendations that are a concern to a variety of 18 employees.
Collectively we have made a commitment to i
19 equality, equity and fairness in the merit process and i
i 20 the principles for all members of our diverse work 21 force, as our record here at the NRC clearly reflects i
22 the progress we have made.
23 However, much remains to be done before l
24 women and minorities in representative numbers at all l
i 25 levels are present in our work force.
To maintain l
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1 this commitment, my office continues to work to assist 2
in the development and implementation of programs i
3 directed specifically to the recruitment, development, f
4 training and retention of women and minorities.
l t
i 5
I now want to briefly highlight some of i
6 the efforts and results of impacts made by our EEO 7
counselors.
8 As you are aware, our EEO counselors will 9
be recognized at an award ceremony immediately i
10 following this briefing.
The support provided by our 11 EEO counselors has been most beneficial to the entire 12 staff at the NRC.
When contacted by aggrieved 13 employees, counselors make very objective and sound 14
~ enquiries.
They counsel on the issues involved and l
1 15 seek a solution on an informal basis.
During FY 1993, l
t 16 131 employees were counseled. However, only 12 formal
.l 17 complaints were filed during the period under the EEO f
18 complaint process.
Thus, approximately nine percent 19 of employees counseled filed formal complaints.
20 We recently polled four agencies to 21 determine the percentage of formal complaints filed in 22 comparison to the number of counselor's contacts. The l
23 data was given for FY '92 since their data for '93 had 24 not been tabulated.
On an average, the four agencies 25 had 63 percent of contacts resulting in formal i
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complaints compared to 25 percent for the NRC for the 2
fiscal year 1992.
If you look at fiscal year 1993, it 3
was even better for NRC, as I mentioned earlier.
It t
f 4
was only nine percent.
j 5
This speaks highly of the counselors' 6
success in working with employees,
- managers, 7
supervisors and the Office of Personnel to resolve 8 l potential complaints to the satisfaction of all r
i I
9 '
parties.
i 10 My next topic is on the NRC Civil Rights 11 and EEO Program.
In preparing this Commission paper 12 on our EEO program, we were able to compare our five 13 year affirmative action objectives, our five year 14 personnel statistics, and the EEOC 1990 Census I
15 availability data which is based on ten years.
16 Results of this comparison, as delineated in the 17 Commission paper, reflects improvements at the NRC in i
18 many categories.
This is further supported by the t
19 EEOC review of NRC 1992 affirmative action i
20 accomplishment report. Although there continues to be l
21 under representation of Hispanics, Native American men 22 and women in certain occupational categories, over the 23 past five years we have been successful in increasing 24 the representation of minorities and women in most of i
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1 engineering,
- physics, health physics and program l
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analysts.
7.s Mr. Taylor mentioned, the Commission i
3 paper discusses six key areas on which the staff has 4
focused its efforts for further improvements.
5 ;
With regards to our EEO courses, the i
6 agency has provided extensive EEO training which has 7
enhanced the EEO awareness and the communications l
t 8
process between staff and management.
Examples of 9
some of' these courses are:
EEO for managers and l
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10 supervisors; EEO at NRC; Age in NRC work force; t
ll working with employees with disabilities; cultural 11 12 diversity; and sexual harassment prevention.
(
13 In closing, I want to mention our plan to
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t 14 form a senior level team from the Offices of Small
)
15 Business and Civil Rights and Personnel and OGC to j
l 16 visit major office directors and regional t
17 administrators to discuss with them their EEO and l
i 18 affirmative action and sexual harassment issues.
The 19 objective of these visits is to develop better lines j
i 20 of communication between the various organization i
1 21 components and to ensure that the agency policies in i
22 the areas of EE0, affirmative action and sexual l':
23 harassment are_ clearly understood and implemented.
24 Thank you.
.i i
I J
25 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Thank you very much, Mr.
j i
l' 1
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1 15 i
l 1
Miller.
Wed like to welcome you into your new 1
2 position.
Clearly there's a lot of momentum going as l
I 3
discussed in the report and there's certainly no 4
question that under the EDO's leadership the awareness l
5 of a wide range of what I might call civil rights i
6
- issues, affirmative action in some cases, equal 7
opportunity in some cases, dealing with people of I
8 various groups, this sensitivity is much greater in 9
the Commission than it was awhile ago.
10 I have a lot of questions, but I think l
11 what I'd prefer to do is turn to my colleagues, i
12 MR.
TAYLOR:
Mr.
Chairman, excuse me.
13 Before going to questions of all of us here, I believe 14 that the President of the Union, Jim Thomas, had some j
'l 15 remarks that he would like to make.
16 That's correct, right, Jim?
l 17 MR. THOMAS:
I can make it now or later.
j 18 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
No, why don't you make it i
19 now, Mr. Thomas.
Sorry.
l 4
20 MR.
THOMAS:
I would agree that the j
i 21 executive orders, there's a couple that have been 22 issued by President Clinton, have changed the focus, j
23 EEO focus and the bargaining focus in the federal l
4 i'
24 sector.
Executive Order 12871, issued on October 1, 25 greatly expands the bargaining scope to where now 4
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unions can bargain over the grades, the numbers and 2
the types of employees within an organization, the 3
methods and means of doing work and the technology of 4
'doing the work.
5i These initiatives have already started to 6
bear fruit.
I think in the agreement recently signed 7
on the Region V realignment, the bargaining that was done there was totally unprecedented as far as both 8
9 the scope and the manner in which it was conducted.
10 I hope to see a good bit more of that in the future.
11 There are some EEO bargaining initiatives 12 that we would like to put on the table very soon with 13 the agency. One would be the implementation of a work 14 at home program.
I think that there are many jobs in 15 the agency where there is job portability and that i
16 would be an advantage to a lot of families.
I 17 We, in fact, have already made a proposal
-)
18 to the agency regarding its streamlining of the EEO 19 process.
Right now for bargaining unit employees 20 chere are two separate procedures that can be used in 21 the filing of an EEO complaint.- One is the statutory 22 procedure that Mr. Miller described.
The other is 23 after counseling the grievance procedure.
We would 24 like to combine those procedures at least up through 25 the= completion of the investigative ' phase of the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTER $ AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (202) 234-4433 W ASHINGTON. O C 20rX)5 (202) 234-4433
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1 complaint.
We've made an offer to the agency to do f
P 2
that.
I think that that will help resolve a good bit i
3 more complaints than are now subject to litigation.
4 The offer also proposed a third party =
f 5
mediation process through the Federal Mediation and I
1 I
I 6
i conciliation Service.
Other agencies have found this 7
helpful in resolving EEO complaints.
5 8
One of the initiatives that we would like t
9 ;
to begin with the agency deals with discrimination i
10 against older workers.
One of the problems that we 11 see and have seen for some time is that job l
12 specifications are written to either eliminate or not 13 to give proper credit to the experience of a lot of 14 older workers.
The qualification criteria for i
i 15 applying for a job in this agency is by and large i
16 being in the proper series and having been in the 17 lower grade for at least one year.
If you meet those
[
18 two
- criteria, you are certified as a qualified 19 candidate.
The next set of rating factors, let's say b
20 for an engineering job, often times half of those 21 factors have little or nothing to do with engineering.
22 We end up with a situation where an employee has 20, 23 25 years of engineering experience, is not able'to 1
24 carry that experience through with his or her rating 25 for the job.
They stand as an equal candidate to I
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somebody who may be just a.very few years out of
.j i
2 college and no experience other than that gained here l
3 at the NRC.
That's something we would like to pursue 4
as a partnership effort in the very near future.
l 5
In the area of sexual harassment, I
l 1
6 believe it's certainly true that the agency has made
{
i 7
some progress in that area.
But unfortunately I
{
8 believe that there are areas that are yet to be i
9 developed, one of which is the table of penalties.
If i
10 you take a
look at the history at how sexual i
11 harassment has been handled in this agency over the l
12 last four or five years, there is virtually no rhyme
(
13 or reason to how we're proceeding.
A case involving i
14 nothing more than verbal contact in one instance for i
15 the bargaining unit employee, everyone is ready to 16 fire the employee.
When a manager is involved, I
(
i 17 don't believe the records show any serious discipline 18 to managers doing the same thing, when in fact the 19 reverse should be true.
A bargaining unit employee l
20 subject to verbal assaults, let's say, from a coworker 21 can handle that much more easily than the same sort of 22 action from a manager.
I think that we need to work I
23 together to develop some sort of table of penalties so I
24 that on the one hand there is equal treatment and on j
6 I
25 the other hand you don't have males in the agency e
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i feeling that they are going to be at some sort of job 2
risk for a single remark that they may have to make.
3 Final area -- oh, there's one other thing 4
that was mentioned by Mr. Taylor. The executive order 5
cutting the grades 14 and above.
One point I'd like 6
to stress is that's a government-wide executive order 7
and written with the idea of the typical government i
8 agency, which the NRC is anything but a typical 9
government agency.
The thrust behind that initiative j
t 10 is to cut back on middle management.
In the typical i
Il government agency you're talking about 14s and 15s and' 12 SESers when you're talking about middle management.
\\
13 I think that the intent of the executive order is not 14 to cut back on the number of 14 and 15 bargaining unit 1
15 em,G lyces.
l 16 The final issue I would like to bring to 17 your attention, if others haven't already, the current 18 locality pay has some provisions to limit individuals 19 who will receive that.
By and large the folks in 20 Region V will not because they have an eight percent
-i 21 pay differential that they're already receiving.
But 22 there are a group of secretaries in the agency who j
23 will be precluded from the locall*,y pay of 4.23
.j 24 percent by a decision issued by the:OPM chief.
The 25 Commission has the authority to grant that increase NEAL R. GROSS COURT HEPORTERS AND TRANSCRISEAS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W j
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9 20 1
and I would suggest that it be given some serious 2
consideration because it would seem highly unf air that 3
the lowest paid group of workers that we have in the l
t
~
4 agency ends up being the only ones that don't get the l
)
5 increase.
6 Thank you.
7 MR. TAYLOR:
Mr. Chairman -- thanks, Jim.
8 All the participants at the table are not 9
prepared to respond to the Commission.
That includes
{
10 all the committee chairpersons to my right and left, 11 as well as my two assistants here.
12 CHAIRMAN SELIN: Right. The Commissioners 13 have read the documents, so rather than summarize'the i
14 documents I thought we might ask some questions and 15 then after we go through the questions we'll ask each l
16 of the people at the table if there's one or two l
t 17 thoughts that having read the documents, having-heard 18 the questions, that he or she might want to pass 19 along.
20 Commissioner Rogers, we'll start with you.
21 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Well, I haven't got f
22 a list of questions for each of the panelists, but I 23 would like to hrsar from them as to what their thoughts 24 are with respect to any-particular issues reflecting 25 their focus.
I think that while we haven't had NEAL R. GROSS (OURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (200 234 4433 WASHINGTON. D C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
21
)
i 1
individual reports from each of the committees, I'd-2 still like to hear any concerns that you feel you'd j
i 3
like to express today, any thoughts and suggestions l
i 4
you may have that have not been immediately obvious in 5
any of the reports that we've heard about this-6 morning.
i 7
MR. TAYLOR:
Commissioner, I'll do that.
8 I'll start it with Elaine and ' hopefully they can 9
summarize a specific issue or the most important i
10 element that they have in their statements, or 11 anything else they care to bring up.
12 Elaine, do you want to start?
i 13 MS. TORO:
Thank you.
l I
14 Mr.
Chairman and Commissioners, the 15 Affirmative Action Advisory Committee is focusing its l
16 talents and resources-at the moment on developing an
[
17 initiative in cooperation with the Office of Personnel 18 and the Office of the EDO to improve the work place 19 for people with disabilities.
We feel ' that this 20 agency should have a very strong affirmative action 21 plan for people with disabilities.
That is going to 22 be the focus of our upcoming work.
It has been the 23 focus now of what we have done thus far and we plan to L
24 continue along that path.
25 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Thank you.
?
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l 22' 1
COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Thank you.
2 MR. TAYLOR:
Mark?
3 MR.
AU:
Our Committee is especially 4
concerned about the glass ceiling issue, since we have 5
many senior people with much experience and 6
educational levels beyond the norm.
We would like to 7
further explore this area in regard to our staff at 8
NRC.
9 MR. TAYLOR:
Thank you, Mark.
10 Cardelia?
11 MS. MAUPIN:
Thank you.
12 On behalf of Blacks in Government, I would 13 just basically like to say that one thing that we have t
14 been focus in on is try to do creative things in light i
i 15 of the executive order.
I am pleased to say that we 16 were able to work extensively with Mr.
Taylor in 17 putting on some training in terms of the 171 vihich we 18 thought was very beneficial in terms of not only i
19 professional staff but trying to get to the clerical t
A 20 staf f and that's what we're c.sntering on now. We know i
21 from the order that there are limitations on the 14s 22 and the 15s, but however there are some clerical 23 people that we' feel-we can focus our attention on and 24 try to see some advancements in those areas.
We plan 25 to continue to work with Mr. Taylor and Mr. Miller in k
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23 1
terms of these efforts.
2 One other thing is that we're kind of 3
concerns in terms of the representation of African 4
American females in professional categories and then 5
too we will try to do different initiatives in terms 6
of promotion of black African-American females.
7 MR. TAYLOR: Thank you, Cardelia.
I would 8
note -- thank you for mentioning your initiatives.
l 9
The 171 initiative is a particularly good 10 one because filling out, and that becomes very much a l
11 part of the personnel action and review.
I think it i
12 was an excellent idea and I'm pleased that we're 13 helping people who have some difficulty preparing all 14 that necessary paper in applying into positions.
So, t
15 I'd like to continue all the areas of your work.
I'll 16 continue to support training in that area.
17 Sharon?
i 18 MS. CONNELLY:
Yes.
'w t,.mittee on Age 19 Discrimination believes that spe.ui41 at tention needs 20 to be focused in two areas.
Number one, to see why so 21 many of our EEO complaints are age-related and, number i
22 two, we think the executive order bears watching to 23 ensure that our' older employees aren't adversely 24 affected by the results of it..
25 COMMISSIONER de PLANQUE:
I have a
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I 24 1
specific question, a specific question for your group.
2 I noticed in the submission of issues you asked 5
3 something about the investigation and I wasn't quite j
4 clear of the question you were asking and whether the i
i 5
response was responsive.
Do you want to elaborate on 6
that?
7 MS. CONNELLY:
No, we don't believe the B
response was fully responsive.
We have learned that t
i 9
the Office of Labor Relations is conducting 10 investigations of sexual harassment cases and we 11 believe-that investigations should be conducted by i
12 trained investigators, people who don't come with any 13 preconceived biases, that people in the Office of f
14 Personnel know the accused and the accuser and we i
15 think to preserve the integrity of the process it's 16 appropriate that an independent investigator be l
17 brought in.
I 18 MR. BIRD:
We do look into misconduct and i
19 basically that's the thrust of our look.
We are not 20 trained investigators.
We don't claim to be trained T
.1 investigators.
We work very closely with the Small f
1 22 Business and Civil Rights Office, the IG and OGC in r
23 looking into these matters with a
potential of 24 misconduct.
So, hopefully those resources are all 25 brought to bear in the course of this.
So, we are not NEAL R. GROSS COURT AEPORTER5 AND TRANSCRIDERS f
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25 1
trying to be investigators in the pure sense.
2 COMMISSIONER de PLANQUE:
Is your i
3 microphone on?
4 MR. BIRD:
I think so.
The light is on.
j 5
COMMISSIONER de PLANQUE:
Okay.
6 MR. TAYLOR:
Anything else, Sharon?
7 MS. CONNELLY:
No, that's all I have.
8 MR. TAYLOR:
Laura?
9 MS. GERKE: We have three main issues that 10 we've been following.
The first one is career 11 development and tra ining for secretaries. We continue 12 to hear a lot of concern from secretaries that they're 13 denied training due to office coverage,_which is a 14 legitimate concern except when it's repeatedly used to 15 deny someone training. We're encouraged that with the 16 FTE reduction there may be a possibility for the 17 agency to use retraining and open up some lower level 18 administrative positions that secretaries can then 19 explore new career paths that way.
t 20 Another issue is continuing concern about 21 the lack of diversity in the SES.
We echo BIG's 22 concern about the lack of African-American women, but 23 also lack of any minority women in the SES.
Again 24 there have been encouraging moves with the SESCDP as i
25 well as the supervisory candidate development program NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRfEERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (202) 234 4433 WASN:NG10N, D C 20005 (202) 2344433
26 1
that a lot of the women who were in those -- who have 2
entered those programs are in non-technical areas and
- j ti 3 l!
a lot of the opportunity for SES is in more technical i;
ji ll positions.
But we are encouraged that that's a start 4
5 ll and we're glad those programs were offered.
6 rhen the last area that we continue to i;
7 l; f ollow it.
aking a family-friendly work place, which 8 l we've seen demonstrated through the parenting classes I
il 9 ll and day care center and which we also hope will result f
in eventually flexi-place being offered.
10 I
11 l CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Thank you.
l 12 MR. TAYLOR:
Thank you, Laura.
ll 13 ll Maria?
l' 14 MS. LOPEZ-OTIN:
Yes. To remind you what 15 I have said every year, that Hispanics still continue 16 to be under represented in all categories. We have no 17 female supervisors or SES.
Most of our grades are in 18 the 9 to 11 category.
We have no problem with the 19 institutional initiative that have been proposed.
20 What HEPAC intends to do, however, is to talk to each 21 of the Hispanic employees, at least in Headquarters, 22 there are only about 40 some of us here, to see what 23 their actual experiences have been and then we will 24 share that with Vandy to see how the initiatives are 25 really af fecting people.
Unless we do that, we could NEAL R. GROSS COURT RE PORTERS AND TRANSCP!EiERS 1323 RHODE ISL AND AVENUE. N W i202i ?:u-4433 V. ASHtNGTON D C P3005 (202) 234-4433
i 27.
1 have initiatives and nothing is happening.
j 2
MR. TAYLOR:
Larry?
3 MR. PITTIGLIO:
Good morning.
4 One of the key issues that we've been 5
concerned about and which we've brought to the table 6
I believe at the last four briefings and which I 7
understand will soon come to closure is the sexual
'i 8
harassment policy statement. That's been a big focus.
9 We still feel that the need for that has to come.
We 10 understand the data, that's in the near-term of being j
11 printed and we certainly hope that that will be out on l
t 12 the street and available in the very near future.-
13 Another area that we have been working on 14 and will continue to work on in that is the perception j
15 of management support in the EEO area.
While we.
16 believe there has been improvement made and certainly I
17 there has been improvement, it is an area that still 18 needs additional work and in the near term, hopefully 19 by the next briefing we will be able to make some 20 recommendations to help improve that process.
1 21 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
It's not true that we 22 held up the brochure in order to get past this 23 meeting.
But we really are working on it.
24 MR. TAYLOR:
We'll continue - then, sir, 25 with questions, points.
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1 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Well, just on that 2
question of management.
Have you any thoughts -- you 1
3 said you will be coming forward with some suggestions.
4 Can you offer anything to us today in the approach 5
that you're considering with respect to more 6
management attention to EEO matters?
7 MR. PITTIGLIO:
Well, one of the areas or 8
approaches that we're considering and which we will 9]
develop is to give more recognition, real positive 10 recognition to managers that have members that are, 11 for example, in the EEO area working on the committees j
12 or in different areas.
While we realize that the l
13 committee time certainly does take away from 14 productive other FTE
- products, it certainly is i
15 beneficial to the agency and to be able to recognize 16 those managers that allow their individuals to use 17 that time, to give them more recognition than an 18 ordinary ratir',
it may be an example of the 19 difference
- between, in our opinion on the SES 20 appraisal, and E and an O.
That type of dedication in -
i 21 support of those people would certainly be 22 certainly should be recognized as a positive movement 23 by a manager.
j 24 MS. GERKE:
If I could add something to 25 that.
One concern we have had is there's several NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W 902) 2344433 WASHINGTON. D C 20005 (202) 2344433
29 1
members on our committee who are advised by their 2
managers that they shouldn't apply to FWPAC because it 3
could harm their career.
And there's another one who 4
her boss has told her before she can attend our 5
meetings, which are held during the lunch hour, that a
6 she has to supply one week's written notice to him.
7 We feel that senior managers are very i
8 supportive of EEO, but there may be a concern at the 9
middle management level and one idea we were thinking 10 of is maybe have it rotate among the various advisory 11 committees to meet with the candidates who are in the 12 SESCDP and the supervisory one so that they gain a 13 better understanding of just what the advisory 14 committees do because there seems to be maybe a fear 15 or threat of what we're doing where a lot of what i
16 we're exploring, maternity
- leave, secretarial 17
- training, is very innocent.
Maybe if we had an 18 opportunity to explain more of what we're doing, that 4
19 would alleviate some of these concerns that we've 20 heard.
21 CHAIRMAN SELIN: Those instances you cited 22 I
consider to be outstanding examples of 23 discrimination and really should be reported.
I mean
[
24 apart from the other material.
That's just clearly 25 not consistent with the Commission's guidance or NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSC419ERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
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policy.
2 MS.
GERKE:
No, we agree.
It's not 1
3 consistent with Commission policy or what we believe 4
l 4
senior managers believe.
5 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
The point I want to make l
6 is you shouldn't accept that passively.
Management 7
tries to deal with people at all levels, but even the 8
best intention of management is limited to what it can 9
9 do if we don't get feedback when egregious examples or i
10 even less egregious examples than the ones you cited 1
11 occur.
So, not to put the monkey on your back, it 12 really is the people's responsibility to come forward i
13 when something happens.
14 MS.
GERKE:
Well, they did go forward 15 because they applied.
16 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
That doesn't solve --
l 5
17 MS. GERKE:
It doesn't prevent it from 18 happening again.
the discipline and 19 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
20 communication problem.
That deals with the basic 21 question, which is how to get the people into the 22 organizations that they want to belong with, but 23 there's got-to be some feedback.
I hope these are 24 rare instances, but I guarantee that they'll become e
25 much rarer if, in fact, somebody tells the EDO about I
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them rather than just suffering in silence.
2 MS. GERKE:
Okay.
3 MR. PITTIGLIO:
Let me make an additional 4
comment.
Our committee has had a significant problem 5
in recruiting members.
Not maybe to the level that 6
the Federal Women's Program
- has, but when the 7
committees are not recognized - as being a positive 8
complement, it certainly doesn't appear to some people 9
that they are a career enhancement by volunteer to 10 join a committee that may put them in a position 11 contrary to what management wants to hear. That's why 12 the importance of recognizing the work of the 13 committees in some way will help turn that around.
14 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Well, certainly the 15 committees are important and in my view management 16 should certainly support them.
But I'd like to say 17 that the committees are really there, it seems to me, 18 to try to help us to make improvements.
It's those 19 improvements that one has to start'to focus on, not 20 just the participation in the committees.
21 What I was looking for from you and would 22 like to hear from you would be more suggestions with 23 respect to how management might itself become more 24 effective in dealing with EEO considerations in'its 25 everyday practice of management.
Not simply to allow NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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1 pcople or even encourage people to work on EEO 2
committees,_ but actually how the managers themselves l
3 change.
Committees are great, but the managers are 4
the ones who have to change themselves if change is S
required.
I know that I've talked a little bit about 6l ways in which training programs might be improved to I
7 perhaps offer more examples-to managers as to how they
{
l 8
might deal with issues by case studies of various j
9 -
kinds and I've talked to Mr. Miller about that more I
4 10 recently.
+
i 11 I would encourage you to think how one --
12 how you might put yourself in the shoes of a manager 13 who somehow or other perhaps is not thinking about a i
14 situation perhaps as creatively as they might and not 15 simply to the issue of manager not providing enough.
16 encouragement for participation in committee work.
17 That's all I have.
j MR. GIESE-KOCH:
Would it be appropriate i
18 19 if I made a comment?
I an'an EEO counselor and I
-20 would like to make a comment.
j 21 CHAIRMAN SELIN: Well, we're certainly not 22 going to silence an EEO counselor on your date.
So,
'23 why don't'you come up and do it.
l 24 MR. GIESE-KOCH:
My name is Gus Giese-l 25 Koch.
I'm a counselor since 1982.
'One suggestion I
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33 j
1 I've always made through the years is that management.
2 and EEO counselors could get together once a year to I
3 talk about the problems and to see why and to
(
l 4
alleviate the adverse relationship that ueems to be l
5 existing between counselors and management.
I always i
6 have the feeling of uncomfort when I
talk to c
7 management and that shouldn't be there because we are 8
not an advocate, we're just trying to counsel.
I've 9
been trying since
'82 to get the managers and the 10 counselors together and we have never done that.
We 11 have counselors meetings every year and the managers i
12 have EEO meetings every year, but they never have 13 gotten together and I think that would be a very good i
14 idea.
15 Thank you.
16 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Thank you.
I 17 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Sounds like a
18 valuable suggestion to me.
19 COMMISSIONER de PLANQUE:
Well, I have a 20 few questions.
Surprise, surprise, and also some 21 comments.
22 First of all, I'm extremely please to see 23 an almost standing room only crowd.
By the way, there 24 are some seats over here, unless you're trying to make i
25 a fast escape.
But I'm extremely pleased to see so NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. t4 W (202) 2344433 WASHINGTON. D C 20005 (202) 234 4433
i 34 i
1 many people here and especially this time seeing more f
2 supervisors and managers than I think we've seen in l
3 the past.
4 I would also commend the staff on an 5 l excellent report. You certainly are giving us lots of 6
information and certainly the information that we need 7
to evaluate how the programs are going.
So, I think 8
it's difficult.
9 Several of you acknowledged that times are 10 going to be more difficult in the future with several i
l 11 of the executive orders in terms of making more i
12 progress and I think we recognize that as well and we 13 all need to work together to do as much as possible to 14 not stop the progress.
15 I would also like to thank you, all of you 16 for being so responsive to the questions we asked 17 after the last briefing.
You sent voluminous I
18 information which was right on target and I think that 19 was excellent.
20 One issue that I'd like to talk a little 21 more about is the PATCO comparison.
I must admit I 22 still feel a
little uncomfortable with doing a
f 23 comparison only with the national statistics.
Now, I 24 realize we do that because the EEOC is looking for l
25 that comparison, but I still have the feeling that to 4
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]
~
I 35 s
1 solce extent' we need to take into-account the 2
geographical differences and the differences in 3
categories.
We're not only looking at this for the 4
purposes of fulfilling an EEOC obligation, but also to 5
determine our recruiting practices and we need to be 6
more and more efficient in those recruiting practices 7
and the practices for establishing various programs ~
8 directed at affirmative action.
Furthermore, we want 9
to take advantage of the talent that is out there and f
I lo available.
11 So, I think there are many reasons for 12 looking at other than the national stat'istics.
My.
l 13 sense is that if you use the national only some of the t
14 targets may - be unrealistic.
Some of them may be 15 unrealistically high and some may be unrealistically i
16 low.
As I look through them, I'll give you a couple 17 of examples.
18 If you look at women, geography shouldn't 19 matter because I think we have about equal numbers of
(
20 women no matter where we are in the country or else
~
21 we'd be having other problems.
But if I look at the i
22 professional category, which in our case involves 23 mostly scientists and engineers and I look at the 24 table of hires and applicants for 1993, the national 25 statistics would suggest that in the professional NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W i
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l 36 l
1 category, according-to PATCO, you'd expect about 30
~2 percent females.
Now, I think that's probably an l
3 unrealistically high target because we know that the 4
percentages are not that high in the scientific j
l disciplines and especially engineering.
j 5
6 However, they're probably not as low as 7
what you see in our applicants which even if you say 8
all those unidentified were women, you would come up 9
with almost ten percent female applicants for these 10 positions and about a six percent hire.
11 So, the truth is probably somewhere in 12 between and you do mention in your report Oak Ridge 13 statistics on scientists and engineers.
In fact, that 14 may provide a.more realistic target in this area.
We 15 know, for example, in engineering schools women are 16 about 15 percent.
So, again, the national statistics l
17 may be doing us a disservice in terms of trying to J
r 18 match that number.
It may be unrealistic for the j
19 types of people that are hired at NRC.
20 I also noted again or I didn't see 21 anything in your report about actively using women's 22 colleges for recruiting.
I know we've discussed this 23 in the past.
You may be doing it, but I didn't see 24 that reflected in the report.
If you look at the --
25 did you want to comment on that?
l l
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1 1
MR. BIRD:
Yes.
We are recruiting at the 2
predominantly women's colleges as well as targeting 3
women that are in co-ed campuses.
4 COMMISSIONER de PLANQUE:
Okay.
l 5
MR. BIRD:
So, I can show you that as a 6f portion of our recruitment effort, if you'd like.
7 COMMISSIONER de PLANQUE:
You probably I
8 need to brag a little bit more in the report.
Okay.
9 Again if you look at the national 10 statistics, in the case of African-Americans, the i
11 national statistics may be misleading in that we may j
12 really be under represented, but it may not show if i
13 you look at the national-statistics.
- Here, the
-t 14 washington Metropolitan area may be a bit better 3
15 representative, especially in the clerical areas and i
16 in the administrative areas, perhaps in the technical I
4 17
- areas, i
18 MR.
BIRD:
I should say that we have l
19 looked against the Washington, D.C.
statistics for i
20 Headquarters offices.
We've looked at the local 4
21 metropolitan areas against the regional offices.
We 22 had a meeting with Commissioner Rogers where we talked i
23 about even expanding beyond that to look at the entire 24 region that surrounds the particular office.
Region 25 I,
for
- example, could look very easily at our i
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- ~
. -.. - = _
~ _. _
~. - -
38
)
i
)
1 recruitment target of Hispanics in Northern New 2
Jersey.
In fact, the agency has gone to job fares in I
3 Secaucus with that in mind.
4 So, I think we're trying to look at this 5
in as many ways as we can.
We're also getting data l
6 from Oak Ridge which is more particularly oriented to 4
7 our particular disciplines.
We have an extensive 8
project working with the National Science Foundation 9
to even further refine where'these resources may be.
i 10 So, there are a lot of things happening in parallel l
11 here.
12 COMMISSIONER de PLANQUE:
Right.
13 MR. BIRD:
We couldn't put all of that 14 data in the report.
We can certainly share that with 15 you if you'd like because we are cutting this a lot of 16 different ways, not the least of which is by the
[
17 metropolitan area wherein the office exists.
P 18 COMMISSIONER de PLANQUE:
Well, I applaud l
19 all those efforts and I think it might be useful if 20 you could include at least the Washington area 21 statistics in here because I think everybody reading i
22 it would then have a better feel of the range of these 23 numbers and how realistic our targets are, especially 24 in the science and engineering area.
I don't know if 25 the Oak Ridge data are conducive to putting into a I
L NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIDERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W f
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39 l
t 1
table in the
- report, but I
think having those l
2 comparisons people would see better what the ranges 3
are and that you can't really zero in on 14.2 percent 4
and hope that that --
1 I
5 MR. BIRD:
We can certainly do that.
The 6
measure from EEOC is, of course, still the national l
7 data.
But we have that other data and we can provide 8
it.
.f 9
COMMISSIONER de PLANQUE: Okay. You know, j
)
10 you could go on and discuss this for the other I
11 categories as well.
I think the Asians, as you 12 pointed out, Mr. Au, are in more of a glass ceiling j
i 13 problem than of the initial recruitment problem j
14 because our recruitment ~ numbers show percentages
}
15 higher than what you would expect looking at the 16 national averages.
But again, - it may be are we 17 comparing the right populations.
I i
18 I just had a couple other questions.
On 19 the sexual harassment training, I was a bit confused 20 with the information in the report. It referred to 42 21 percent of the staff being trained.
Is that staff in 22 general or managers-and was that since 1982 or since 23 the last training program?
24 MR. BIRD:
Yes. That is more current than 25 since
'82.
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- _ ~ -.
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40 1
COMMISSIONER de PLANQUE:
Okay.
]
l
\\
2 MR. BIRD:
I would suggest that since '82 j
I 3
a nuch larger percentage of the population has j
4 received training in this area.
That training, we I
5 have begun to record every individual who attends.
6 Many of these are held in entire offices or an entire e
7 regional group, which would include both managers and l
8 bargaining unit employees and anybody who wished to i
9 attend.
We're going to continue to give these 10 sessions until we have literally ticked off every 11 employee in the agency as having attended and then I
[
12 would think we would continue it beyond that for new 13 employees.
So, the effort is to envelope the entire 14 work force in this training, j
15 MR. TAYLOR:
Vandy, you might want to i
l 16 answer that.
l 4
17 MR. MILLER:
Yes.
So far for 1993 there 18 have been 49 sessions conducted.
So that includes a 19 whole lot of people.
20 COMMISSIONER de PLANQUE: Okay. Is it now l
21 mandatory for all supervisors?
?
22 MR. BIRD:
We're taking names, i
l 23 COMMISSIONER de PLANQUE: We leave that to l
24 the audience to interpret.
25 MR. BIRD:
We do consider it mandatory.
f NEAL R. GROSS l
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t 41 1
COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Do you write them on -
(
2 a blackboard too?
3 MR. TAYLOR: We're noting who is not here.
4 MR. BIRD:
Yes, we're making a list and i
5 checking it twice.
6 COMMISSIONER de PLANQUE: How appropriate
[
7 for Christmas.
8 There was a mention in the cover letter, e
9 Jim, about using organizational consultants to do a 10 study of the organizational climate.
Could you tell i
i 11 us a little more about that?
12 MR. TAYLOR:
Paul?
13 MR. BIRD: Yes. We have been looking into 14 this and have had some discussions with the j
15 Commissioners and more particularly with groups who f
16 provide this type of cultural diversity training.
We t
17 have a proposal, a contract proposal that's now 18 working which would lead to an outside contractor i
19 group coming into the agency, working with the EDO and 20 presumably the Commission at the outset to develop i
21 some goals and objectives and then there's a sort of i
22 a long-range -- it's really a proposal that would last 23 over a period of some years.
If everything moves f
24 accordingly, there are milestones of course in there, Ir 25 but we would plan to move out with that smartly next 4
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1 42 i
1.
calendar year.Yes.
l t
2 MR. TAYLOR:
We've actually had some of 3
the staff who have attended some of the sessions given f
4 by representatives of this type of thing and then j
5 report back that it's excellent training that we i
i 6
should -- when we have the work force sufficiently
[
t 7
diverse, that it would do us some good.
So, we are i
8 going to get that started.
l 9
MR.
BIRD:
We've had some excellent 10 feedback from other companies, both private and public 11 sector, who have used this particular resource that 12 we're interested in, but we will do this through the 13 contract process.
i 14 COMMISSIONER de PLANQUE:
Okay.
15 MR. BIRD:
That's underway.
I 16 COMMISSIONER de PLANQUE:
Okay.
Now my t
17 favorite subject, flexi-place.
I recognize that we i
18 now have the new work-at-home policy.
Has that been
[
19 promulgated?
Have all employees received any --
l 20 MR. BIRD:
I can speak to that.
We've 21 concluded the negotiations with the employee union.
j i
22 We have a document in my office which will go out to
~
23 lay this in place.
It does expand the current i
24 situation.
Essentially in practice we're already 25 starting to apply that.
We do need to get out the i
l NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTER $ AND TRANSCRIBERS f
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i 43 r
I notification to the staff, having concluded the j
2 negotiations on this at this point.
3 COMMISSIONER de PLANQUE:
Okay.
It was 4
interesting to me that 69 percent of the employees in 5
the survey were anxious to see more expansion of that.
6 I wonder if the other 31 percent are the managers and i
7 supervisors.
8 MR. TAYLOR:
We didn't sort it that way.
9 COMMISSIONER de PLANQUE:
You didn't sort 10 it that way?
11 MR. BIRD:
Yes.
I should say that we are l
12 planning some visits to the telecommuting sites.
13 There's one in Hagerstown, I believe.
We'll also be 14 talking with some of the agencies who have had 15 experience with the work-at-home.
Department of 16 Justice, for example, seems to be an agency that's had l
17 quite good experience and we're going to go down and 1
18 meet with them and look into that further.
i 19 COMMISSIONER de PLANQUE:
I also notice 20 that the national performance review emphasized 21 looking into flexi-place, telecommuting and all of l
22 those.
I think you have a report'due to us in March 23 reevaluating this.
So, I look forward to that.
24 MR. BIRD:
That's right.
25 COMMISSIONER de PLANQUE:
Thank you very NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W C0212344433 WASHINGTON. D C 20005 p02) 234-4433
44 1
much.
I thought it was an excellent report.
2 MR. BIRD:
Thank you.
3 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Thank you.
4 I'd like to make a couple of comments and 5
then ask some questions, comments in response to the 6
things people have said.
t 7 i First of all, I do believe that the 8
bargaining in Region V has been really quite positive i
1 9
attitude and I hope that works out well and that 10 that's a sign of good things to come.
It is the first 11 example of the application of the executive order and 12 so far it's been encouraging.
13 More generally, I'd like to talk a little 14 bit about this question of middle management.
We've 15 tried, maybe not as hard or as well as we can, but i
16 we've tried to stress that we're not trying to reduce 17 the number of senior grades in the organization, we're 18 trying to reduce the number of middle level 19 supervisors.
We've set up a senior level service --
20 well, it's been here, but we really tried to push it.
21 Quite frankly, we want to avoid people going into the 22 SES because they think that's the only future for 23 highly professional technical people and therefore 24 they have to call themselves supervisors to get there.
25 We agree with the idea that 14s and 15s NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRfBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W
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45 i
I aren't necessarily supervisory personnel in our i
{
2 agency.
In fact, they're trying to push it even 3
harder to say that there's a role for reasonable 4
numbers of senior people at all levels that don't 5
necessarily have major supervisory responsibilities.
{
6 So, it's our intention, and we need the feedback from l
7 how it's working, but it's our intention that a 9
reduction in supervisory positions is not an attempt 9
to reduce the grade structure on an average basis or 10 to cut down on the opportunities.
11 Having said all that, it's going to take
[
r 12 a lot of work to make some of these things work.
13 One of the things that's come up in many j
14 of th> responses and I thought I might just put the f
I 15 general question out and see people's responses, is i
16 how we deal with the SES question in general.
Is the J
J7 target group now the people who go into the career 18 development program as opposed to people who are in 19 the 14s and 15s?
Are we doing okay?
Should we be 20 doing some different things?
This. general area of l
l 21 SES, I would hope it would increase and. include the 22 expansion of the SLS, how we identify candidates. How l
~
i 23 we deal with them is a topic that cuts across many of 24 the groups' concerns.
25 So, Ms.
- Gerke, you brought.this up.
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Maybe -- no good deed goes unpunished. Remember that.
i 2
MS. GERKE:
Right.
The programs are one 3
way to diversify.
Another way is recently there have
{
i 4
been a number of SES positions filled from the outside l
l 5
and it seemed that would be a grand opportunity if i
i 6
you're going to say that women and minorities, and I'm j
7 not sure this is true, within the NRC aren't quite t
f 8
ready in large numbers to go into SES.
Well then, if f
i 9
you're going to go outside, that would be a grand 10 opportunity to seek women and minorities for those
[
11 poritions.
i 12 Beyond that, there really is not an easy 13 answer.
We're planning on having a seminar conducted
-l i
14 jointly with SBCR and OP to explain what these i'
15 different programs are.
Not just to broaden the pool 16 of people who apply for them, but also to let people I
17 know these are things you're going to be judged on.
I 18 If you're not ready yet, start working on them so that l
i 19 you'll meet the requirements in future years.
l i
i 20 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
That's very good.
j i-l 21 Mr. Au, do you have anything you wanted to t
22 put.in on this topic since the glass ceiling seems to l
i 23 be completely involved in questions of promotions.
f 1
24 MR. AU:
I think maybe the staff needs to
(
L 25 understand some of these programs a little better as l
i NEAL R. GROSS i
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47 l
i 1
far as the SES and'the other programs, how they can 2
get into these, and maybe a little bit of knowledge 3
being transferred to them.
l l'
4 MR. TAYLOR:
We'll take care of that.
5 We'll be glad to do that.
There are certain criteria 6
that must be applied.
l 7
CHAIRMAN SELIN:
I'd rea.11y like to 8
stress, the reason we're so rich in SESs isn't because 9
NRC people are hardor to supervisor than people in 10 other agencies.
It'a because the kind of work we do 11 involves very senior I cople in a lot of different i
i 12 areas and that doesn't necessarily translate into more l
d 13 supervisors, it translates into just what it says, i
14 very senior people in a lot of different areas.
i 15 One of the things that the management has 16 been trying to do, and I don't doubt that we can do a 1
17 lot ' better, is to make clear that we don't equate E
18 micro management and maybe more management.than we j
i l
19 need in the middle levels with the need for senior i
i 20 people.
We've brought these people in not as senior l
7 21 managers, but as senior substantive people and we '
4 22 really have to make that work.
I would hope that your l
23 committees take part in that to some degree.
j 24 The second general question had more to do j
25 with secretaries and administrative people in career
~
1 l
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3 paths that clearly cuts across a number of lines.
Ms.
l 2
Gerke and to some degree Ms. Maupin brought up some of j
3 the more egregious obstacles, but do we have a selling l
f 4
job to do inside?
Is it that training is not that i
5 good or do people not believe in the training or do i
6 people not believe in the training or do people apply l
7 for the training and they don't get it?
It's j
l
'8 statistics.
6 I
9 My intention, and I want to make it clear,
{
10 is to get more people in the right jobs, not just to 11 have better reports each year.
But nevertheless, the j
j 12 statistics on training are hard to use because they're l
t 13 not detailed enough by job category.
Where do you i
s 14 think this question of secretaries training both for l
l 15 improved performance and advancement, where are the 16 problems?
Are they people want to take it, but it's 17 not available, people don't believe in it, people l
I 18 don't know enough that it's available to be taken?-
l i
19 MS. LOPEZ-OTIN:
We have been asking our-i i
i 20 8s, 9s, 7s to apply for different positions and in 1
21 just having to ask them to do it there is a rt luotant e -
l 22 because I have a couple of very good women W. navi i
23 applied two or three times, it does take a lot of 24 times, and they don't get the jobs.
Now, it could be 25 because they don't meet all of the criteria.
I'm not I
i
)
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,,y
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49 1
saying that there's a systemic discrimination, but i
2 somehow what we and HEPAC are going to try to do, and j
3 this is what I said I will talk to them, is to find 4
out what they want now and try to find for them --
i
~
5 trying to look at vacancy announcements and almost 6
being a service because we are human beings and after 7
you apply and get turned down two or three times --
i 8
CHAIRMAN SELIN:
It's discouraging.
i 9
MS. LOPEZ-OTIN:
-- you get discouraged.
I 10 And there are no bridge positions.
I have been 11 talking to Paul some and they're very few and far f
12 between, which used to be a way that secretaries could 13 move into different series.
HEPAC has been pushing 14 that.
But let's face it, we're in times that things 15 have been reduced and we're caught in the middle.
16 MS. MAUPIN:- I would like to also respond 17 to - that question.
Reflecting back on some of the l
18 comments that I've received, one basically.goes back 19 to what Ms. Gerke has said, is. basically allowing
)
20 secretaries to be released to. go to training.
21 Sometimes they-would be asked how appropriate is the 22 training even though it will be very beneficial to the j
23 overall office. A second thing is whether or not that I
24 training is on their IDP. -Should they be held hostage 25 to taking training if it's'not on their IDP and it's-NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1
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something that will be very beneficial.
These are 2.
some of the concerns that have been brought to me.
!I 3
MR.
BIRD:
Yes.
There's certainly no reason that IDP is the only avenue for getting l
4 5
training and again, as I think the Chairman pointed out earlier, if we know these individual instances and 6
l!i 7 ll we know the managers involved, then we can certainly i;
!l b1 engage in the dialogue.
I know in a couple of cases 8
li 9 !l that were mentioned in the report there was a
lI h
reluctance to really put names together with events.
10 ll ll But that is very helpful to us and we can do that in 11 12 such a manner that I think that it wouldn't offend l
13 anyone.
If we can come to know these cases, we can l
14 l
deal indivirtually with those problems.
15 MS.
TORO:
I'd like to address that, 16 please.
We have had several issues and concerns 17 I raised with our committee with regard to women who are i
18 working in secretarial fields who would like to pursue 19 other avenues of study and their training has been 20 turned down because it has been considered to be not 21 job related.
Now, a training course can't be job 22 related if it pertains to an IDP and is perhaps a 23 career enhancement device.
So, job relatedness will 24 never be a qualifier for some training for some 25 occupational categories.
But women who have come to NEAL R. GROSS I
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51 1
us and among our committee members we have had those 2
experiences, numbers don't always tell the story, but 3
people's experiences do.
We listen and we try to 4
improve in the areas where we can.
But I do know 5
concrete evidence has come to us of-training being s
6 turned down by women who are secretaries because what 7
they want to study is not job related.
i 1
8 MR.
TAYLOR:
May I speak?
This is j
9 certainly contrary to my policy.
I believe very l
10 strongly in the need to offer the junior positions the 11 opportunities for advancement.
So, I would appreciate l
12-your getting in touch with Mr. Bird when these come 13 up.
I believe we can provide every employee the 14 training that they may find necessary for advancement 15 and I have the money to do that and that's my general l
16 intention.
I feel very good when an employee is able 1
17 to succeed into more senior positions and helped.by 18 our training to do so.
I would like to know about l
19 those because that's not consistent.
f 20 Do you agree that that's not consistent 21 with our policy?
22 MR.
BIRD:
If I can comment on - that, 23 there's an effort in Congress now to liberalize the 24 Government Employees Training Act.
.We do try to 25 operate within the Act.
If the liberalization does NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE NUE. N W (202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON. D C 20005 (202) 234 4433
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52 1
occur, then certainly it will allow us to provide even 2
more training where that appears to be some problem.
3 Again, I'n familiar with some individual cases and we 4
are trying to address those.
In other cases I think 5
it would be helpful.
If those can be brought to our 4
6 attention, we will certainly take them one at a time.
i 7
CHAIRMAN SELIN:
I have a number of 8
reasons for having raised this issue, but one of them 9
is that a few months ago we heard of a rather 10 aggressive plan in the information resources area l
11 which would make a number of these jobs obsolete. The 12 future always takes longer to come than we'd expect, 13 but we really do have to follow-up on making sure 14 people's skills keep track of what's being used and l
15 being needed so that there's an opportunity not only l
16 for more rewarding jobs and mere productive jobs as 17 some of the more repetitive tasks get better.
i 18 Now, having somebody type you -- give you
[
19 an engineer prepared E-mail document rather than just j
20 telling you to start something from scratch may not be 21 a benefit to the clerical people, but that's the world 22 we're going to be living in, less
- paper, more 23 electronic transfer, more documents being prepared by 24 the authors, more automated uses for filing and i
25 retrieval and hopefully more challenging work for-the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (202; 234 4433 WA$HINGTON. D C 20005 (202) 2344433 L
i 53 4
1 clerical people who would be freed up on some of these 2
redundant tasks.
T 3
I have a couple observations I would like 4
to make.
First is this is really a very encouraging 5
discussion in terms of communication, in terms of some 6
of the statistics, in terms of some of the activities, 7
but it's a very, very hard job and it's a job that 8
takes a long time.
We clearly have to do better, but 9
we have to be realistic about how long it takes to do 10 better.
Now we've got to keep working but not get h
l t
11 discouraged with some of the tough problems and
}
12 getting more Hispanics into the work force or more 13 Asian Americans in the senior areas.
i 14 Related observation is some of the same 15 topics go across a lot of the groups.
At times I 16 wonder if we don't have so many groups that it's hard 17 for people to know which ones to join.
I think that's t
18 probably not right.
I think each group has a unique 19
- function, but it doesn't mean that you shouldn't t
20 consider doing some joint work together on functions 21 that cut across --
l 22 MS. LOPEZ-OTIN:
We are.
23 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Okay.
Fine.
I'm as 24 encouraged by that as by Personnel's response to fix 25 the problem.
So, that's a good start.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W CO2) 234-4433 WASHINGTON. O C 20005 (202)2344433 i
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te-
54 1
But the third thing, and you've brought 2
that up, particularly the HEPAC and the Federal 3
Women's Program, is that the function of the groups 4
isn't entirely to make management sensitive to the 5
problems.
It's making the people who are in the 6
constituencies knowledgeable. and aware of what 7
opportunities are available.
I really applaud the t
8 activities we see in this area.
i 9
So, this is a very important set of 10 topics.
We will keep up the attention to it.
It's 11 going to be really tricky and if we're going to be 12 doing work together, trying to figure out how to make 13 sure that the requirement to reduce some of the 14 supervisory levels doesn't turn into another glass 15 curtain a couple of levels below the other one, how we 16 can make sure we get more -- continue recruiting 17 programs even in the face of the numbers crunch, these 6
18 are all challenger that we'll have to do jointly.
19 Commissioners, did you have any other 20 comments?
21 MR.
TAYLOR:
Mr.
- Chairman, if we've l
22 concluded this portion, the next portion would be with 23 two office directors and a regional administrator.
24 We'll take a few minutes in just a minute.
25 I'd like to thank the committees and Jim, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W
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1 55 I
committee chairpersons for joining us. Thanks for all 2
your help.
Thanks for helping me put the paper i
3 together.
i 4
Joining us -- excuse-me.
-5 CHAIRMAN SELIN: Vandy, I just noticed you l
6 have a better Spanish accent than most of the --
7 MR. TAYLOR:
Yes, he does.
8 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
-- Spanish speakers that 9
we have here.
e 10 MR. MILLER:
R.ll, thank you.
f 11 MR.
TAYLOR:
Joining us will be Tom f
12 Murley, Director of NRR.
Ed Halman, I believe, is 13 sitting in for Pat Norry, who is ill this morning, for 14 the Director of Admin., and Jim Milhoan, Regional 15 Administrator of Region IV.
i 16 Mr. Chairman, we did provide information f
i 17 in the paper, but you may want to initiate the 18 dialogue or question the office directors and regional 19' administrator.
I thought it would be important to get 20 their views on some of the things they're doing.
i 21 CHAIRMAN SELIN: Well, I think I'd like to 22 put the same question, particularly the question about 23 advancement, senior levels, glass curtain, how we're
'f 24 going to try to reconcile these very difficult and 25 conflicting pressures that the Commission puts on the i
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.~
.~ --
56 1
management that were discussed earlier in the session.
I 2
Doctor Murley, perhaps you would care to 3
start talking on this topic.
4 DOCTOR MURLEY:
Yes.
There were some S
thoughts that ran through my mind as I was listening i
i 6
to the discussion and I'd like to go through those and l
7 I'll touch on your questions, Mr. Chairman.
8 The NRC is a highly technical agency.
I i
l think that's what defines us.
If ones goes abroad in
.i 9
{
10 the country or even overseas, NRC is known and 11 respc rcted generally.
It's for largely our technical
{
12 capability.
In NRR, the last time I did a survey, 13 which was a few years ago, but we had something like 14 85 PhDs and 150 or more master's degrees.
So, that is 15 what defines us.
f f
16 But listening to the discussion today, I 17 think there are other traits of an organization that 18 determine how enjoyable it is to work in NRC and it's 19
. not necessarily the technical capability. But we have f
i 20 to keep that in mind, that we are a bit of a-. unique 21 agency.
Probably pound for pound in the U.S.
I r
22 government, more technical than any other..
23 But these other traits that I like to 24 emphasize and I'm sure the Commission does, that's why 25 we're having this meeting, are things like fairness.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 HHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W I
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57 i
1 I think it's important that everyone who works in NRC 2
feel that NRC is a fair agency, tries to be a fair 3
agency.
We perhaps don't always hit it or maybe 4
everyone at every given time doesn't feel that we're 5
being f air, but I think we are. My experience in many 6
years in NRC and AEC is that the agency does try to be 7
fair.
8 Furthermore, the agency cares about its 9
people.
By caring I mean there's at least -- there's 10 several aspects, but one is we try to provide job-l 11 security.
I have real'y been impressed in all my 12 years at AEC and NRC that the agency, I think, goes 13 out of its way to avoid RIFs, to make sure that there i
14 is security of people and I think the agency has done 15 a good job.
16 Another aspect that is important is i
17 opportunities for growth for each employee, not only i
18 the technical' employees but the support employees.
19 Along these lines, we have emphasized, I think as was j
20 mentioned earlier by Jim
- Taylor, individual-q 21 development plans, career planning.
A lot of effort
~
22 goes into that. We at NRR have supported it among the-
.23 management.
It's probably not as successful as it 24 could be, but it does provide a vehicle, I think, for l
25 each employee to think -- lay out how he or she wants NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUL N W (20?) 2344433 WASHINGTON. O C 20005 (202) 234 4433
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I 58 1
to develop and allows the opportunity for training and
{
i 2
for career-enhancing moves.
i 3
We also go to great lengths, I think, to l
4 do rotational assignments and provide people the 5
opportunity to move into areas for temporary
{
6 assignments that give them an opportunity to expand, 7
but also lets other managers see how well they can I
think this notion of 8
perform.
This is 9
opportunities for growth is an important aspect of
[
t 10 what the NRC does.
i 11 Now, specifically with regard to.how are 12 we doing and how can we do better with regard ~to EEO 13 aspects, I think_part of the situation that we have r
14 today is determined by the practices of 20 years ago.
15 By that I mean I don't recall when I was a youngster l
16 in the agency that there was the same attention and 17 the same caring that there is today.
In that sense, I
18 I think the future is going to be better.
19 Let me just mention the intern program-l 20 that we have in NRR.
Because we are a big office, we 21 have more flexibility.
I think that means we'also 22 have more responsibility to look into and care-for i
23 this long-range planning.
So, we've, for the last 24 several years, set aside certain positions that are 25 dedicated to new hires from graduating ' students.
f NEAL Rc GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCH1BERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (20?) 234 4433 WASHINGTON. D C 70005 (20?) 234-4433
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59 e
1 These are technical positions obviously.
But I think 2
we've done quite well in being able to bring on board f
3 positions that -- let me see if I can -- since 1988 we 4
have recruited 56 interns and of those 35 have been 5
females and minorities.
So, in that sense, I think we i
6 have done fairly well.
7 We pay attention to these things.
We're 8
about ready to make -- we've made some verbal offers 9
this year.
Let me just mention to you not the names, 10 but we've made six verbal offers in the last week, a
[
11 white female, an Asian male, Hispanic male, Asian 12 male, black male and white female.
So, I think this l
13 bodes well for maybe five years, ten years, 15 years t
14 from now.
15 I'll conclude by saying what my great wish 16 is, it's to come back here in 20 years to the agency 17 and see at the table on this side people that we've 18 hired'into the intern program and then see a broad 19 representation like we have brought into the intern i
20 program.
f t
21 Thank you.
22 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Thank you very much, 23 Doctor Murley.
24 MR. TAYLOR:
We'll proceed to talk from 25 the others, sir.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT RE PORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W (202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON, D C 20005
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l 60 l
1 Doctor Murley, you kind of frightened me 2
there.
I thought you were going to say in 20 years.
3 you were going to return as an intervenor.
{
4 DOCTOR MURLEY:
Hope not.
I 5
MR. TAYLOR:
We'll look forward to it.
l 6
Ed, would you --
[
7 MR. HALMAN:
Thank you, Mr. Taylor.
t 8
As Mr. Taylor mentioned, I am sort of a 4
9 stand-in for Mrs.
- Norry, the Director of I
10 Administration, and I think that she's particularly 11 disappointed today not only for being ill but-for not 12 being able to make her presentation before the 13 Commission and the agency today on an area that she 14 feels very strongly about.
f I
15 I
think she would be particularly 1
16 interested in some of the comments that came out of r
i 17 the committees today because a number of the areas 18 that the committees are concerned with are ones that 19 she shares and ones that she's already working in the 1
20 Office of Administration to try to achieve.
I think i
23
,that her sense of the Office of Administration is that 22 we are particularly lucky in our mission because we're
- t 23 able to combine the highly professional and highly 24 technical things that Tom has just been talking about 25 with the ability to do bridging because I recognize h
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61 1
that it's sometimes very difficult to do bridging in j
some of the offices because of the particular missions 3
that they have.
4 In the Office of Administration, our 5
missions are wide ranging.
They are very much 6
supportive of the agency's mission, but they have a 7
lot of responsibilities that people who were not 8
particularly trained, either academically or on the 9
job, to do, can be trained to do.
We try to take 10 advantage of that in the Office of Administration.
11 It's also, I think, somewhat ironic that 12 because we are engaged in the streamlining efforts, 13 this provides us with a lot of opportunities that_we 14 would not have had to advance women and minorities in 15 jobs that they normally would not have had the 16 opportunity to attain.
For an example, because of 17 streamlining, we have to be very careful of the cases 18 when we go outside the agency to do recruitment for 19 jobs.
I think particularly in my own field, in the 20 contracting area. When we have a journeyman contracts 21 person leave the area, we normally try to fill that 22 position with another journeyman person, so that we 23 can provide the support to the agency.
We now are 24 even forced to operate within the confines of our own 25 organization and it gives us a lot of opportunities to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCA:BERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
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62 1
tap what really are untapped great resources in the 2
agency.
3 We've always had in the Office of 4
Administration a strong upward mobility program.
But 5,
I think that now we're going to be living with an 6
upward mobility program.
We're going to be living 1
I 7
with the opportunity to take people throughout the
]
l 8
agency and see what kinds of capabilities they have to 9
do the kinds of things that we have responsibility for 10 in the Office of Administration.
l 11 I'm delighted to hear Paul mention about 1
12 flexibility in training because we have people that 13 are really anxic us to show what they can do and all 14 they need is the opportunity through training.
We 15 have lots of instances of cases where we've taken 16 people without college degrees and exposed them to 17 some of the technical training that's available in the 18 federal government, bring them into these jobs, let 19 them compete and they have moved up very well to 20 perform very responsible positions throughout. the 21 Office of Administration, and there are numerous 22 examples of that.
23 What we want to do now is to increase 24 that.
We see a lot of interest throughout the Agency 25 in some of the jobs that we have in-the Office'of s
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W
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63 1
Administration. We spend a lot of our time evaluating
]
2 people.
We are very interested in the committees 3
because the committees are the ones that encourage i
4 people to reach out-and try for positions that they
-f 5
normally would not be able to try for.
Mrs. Norry 6
encourages our own staff to attend these numerous 7
meetings.
I don't think anybody would have reference 1
8 to the Office of Administration when somebody says you i
9 have to give advance notice to attend these meetings.
10 We encourage it.
Mrs. Norry talks to her division i
11 directors and encourages us to tell our managers to 12 let people attend these meetings because it ultimately i
a 13 works to the advantage not only of the Office of 14 Administration but of the agency.
l 15 I share Commissioner Rogers' comment that 16 you really want to see what comes out of - these j
17 meetings.
What are you going.to get?
I think that t
(
18 it's fair to say'that we are getting a lot.
There's 19 a lot of resources in the agency, both women and 20 minority, and we're trying to take advantage of them.
f r
21 We rotate our people 'around within the Office of-22 Administration, but at the same time we want to.take l
I 23 advantage of the overall agency-wide capabilities.
f r
24 So, we encourage training, we encourage 25 participation in these programs'and we are looking l
t NEAL R. GROSS COUAT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS f
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for, like Tom, r..le case where we can say that rather 2
than going outside the agency, that the people that we 3
have i..ide the agency are providing us with the l
4 support and the capabilities to carry on our programs.
5 MR. TAYLOR:
Jim Milhoan, would you like 6
to add a few words?
7 MR. MILHOAN:
Yes, I'd like to.
8 Certainly I agree with Tom's remarks on 9
the improvements in the agency.
Like him, I was here 10 20 years ago also.
11 One of the aspects in the regions that we 12 have seen to date is the product of the intern i
13 program.
We re beginning to see the results of the 14 initiatives in the intern program area.
During the 15 past year two of my resident inspector selectees were 16 graduates of the intern program.
Very productive 17 inspectors at the site.
One of them happens to be a 18 female Hispanic inspector.
So, we're starting to see l
19 the results of that in our region-based inspection 20 program.
[
21 Like other offices, the regions with the 22 reduction in inspection resources, we're reducing the l
23 number of inspectors along with supervisors.
That 24 certainly does not make for good opportunities for 25 widespread advancement.
- However, we still have NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON, D C 20005 (202) 234-4433 i
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[
65 1
opportunities available to us.
So, one of the 2
initiatives we provided last year was in the area of 3
training, to assure that we have a fair and focused 4
training in the region.
We established a training 5
committee headed up by the Deputy Regional 6
Administrator,-in which we focus on training not on a 7
one-time basis, but a continuing basis of using the 8
results of the IDPs and also for those individuals who 9
do not desire to have an IDP, to develop an individual 10 training plan itself.
I 11 In that regard, we found some reluctance 12 of people to develop IDPs, which are voluntary. We've 13 held seminars to try to take the mystique out of IDPs.
14 But we've also had success in the individual training 15 plans which would go to the training committee and be s
16 categories and we could see which courses then we 17 could bring to the regions with attendees, with the 18 number of attendees available to attend the courses.
i 19 In addition to that, one of the areas that i
20 we've focused on, I think also_with good success, is 21 providing the necessary training for our supervisors 22 and managers in the of fice. There had been a tendency I
l 23 to grandfather that type of training.
I do not have I
24 grandfathering any longer.
If you don't have - a 25 certificate, you're available to go to the course.
l NEAL R. GROSS 3
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'f 1
We've found that very productive, very useful for more 2
'the experienced managers to get the supervisory 3
mandatory training.
4 In the region, we also, with the regional J
5 resources, we find a need for rotational assignments, 6
not only at the technical area but in the 7
administrative area, to assure that with reduction in 8
resources that you have a back-up capability in the 9
administrative area. That's been very productive, the l
10 rotational assignments within the regional office to 11 provide additional opportunities for the 12 administrative staff.
We still have more to do.
I 13 One of the areas that we're looking at is l
14 providing the EEO perspective to our training 15 committee.
I happened to be a member of the 16 performance review board last year.
Vandy was there 17 and provided that perspective.
I learned quite a bit 18 from that and we're going to apply that on the l
19 training committee of having an EEO -- a member of my j
20 EEO advisory committee to also be an advisory to the 21 training committee to provide that perspective, j
22 So, we have a lot of opportunities, I i
23 think even in light of the reduction in resources in i
24 the agency, which we can take advantage of.
l 25 MR.
TAYLOR:
That concludes our NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W i
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-i t
l 67 I
presentations this morning.
2 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Well, I'd like to make a 3
couple of overall comments.
These last discussions 4
were obviously quite reassuring.
I 5
As f ar as training goes -- well, let me go 6
back to something Doctor Murley said.
I think it's 7
very important.
I've been in a lot of agencies in the 8
federal government.
I've worked in three.
I've done
!l I
9 y consulting, pro bono or otherwise, to at least 20 I
10 more.
I say top to bottom NRC is the most competent 11 organization that I've been acquainted with and l
12 certainly been associated with in the federal 13 government.
I'd like to think it's because we have f
14 better people and I'm sure that's part it.
But part i
15 of it is we've had the luxury of continuity, of 16 resources for adequate training, of a grade structure 17 that's really quite a bit better than most agencies 18 have.
When you take a department that's spread thin 19 and each of.you works with other departments, their 20 people are very good but they're asked to do something 21 completely different every year without any training.
22 They're promoted without any preparation and pretty 23 soon nobody can handle that kind of work.
j 24 So, to pick up on Doctor Murley's point, 5
1 25 the flexibility you didn't mention it, but the NEAL R. GROSS i
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1 resources brings more responsibility with it as well.
[
2 The Congress hasn't treated us this way because they
[
3 like people who live in Rockville or they like nuclear
[
i 4
power.
It's because they believe that we have 5
responsibilities that require a level of sympathy and 6
understanding on the personnel side that's not 7
throughout the federal government and we have a need 8
to live up to it.
9 That deals partly with -- you'll hear a i
i 10 lot of people say, including me, if you think life is 11 tough here, you ought to try one of the other j
i 12 agencies.
But that's really not the message.
The l
I 13 message is we have an obligation to take advantage of 14 these resources that we have and deliver.
And it's 15 no place more true than it is in the training area.
[
16 I guess I hadn't focused until Mr. Halman
[
17 brought up the point that every week we talk about 18 reducing a couple of positions here or a couple of 19 positions there, but we do it without RIFs and we do l
20 it when an office is closed or relocated. We offer to i
21 move everybody in the office, et cetera.
[
22 But now I understand to some degree why 23 the EDO and the Director of Personnel come in with I
24 their extensive training programs, because this.will l
p 25 open opportunities for certainly bridges and P
l NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS f
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'I 69 l
I advancements that in some ways are forced onto 2
management because we're going to keep the people but 3
the jobs are changing and that means people have to i
4 change to go with the job.
So people have to come in 5
for the training.
If they don't take the training, l
you'know, there's nothing we can do without that.
6 i
e Il
.f 7 h So the flexibility, the r:tsources, the 1
I l
responsibility, the importance of training, I think B
I 9
l those are very good points that we should pick up and
~!
I 10 j
we do expect to have the resources to make the ll 11 l investments in these areas.
We really can't afford l
12 not to.
i 13 Commissioner Rogers?
i f
14 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Yes, a couple of 15
- points, j
16 I thought Mr.
Milhoan's initiative to l
17 encourage senior managers who might have been 38 grandfathered out of training programs just because
{
19 they had been senior managers for so long and
.i' i
20 encourage them to take management training is very 21 important.
I think that's a difficult situation to
.,'l f
22 handle.
I wonder if in doing that it would be l
l 23 advisable to try I know when you have these 24 training sessions you'd probably like to have a mix of 25 people in them, but, you know, one of the problems l
i NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTER $ AND TRANSCR10ERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W em mus3 wAsmumON D C 20005 902) 2 4 33 l
l I
I 70 l
i 1
with senior managers not wanting to go to these j
2 sessions, I suspect, is that they don't want to reveal l
. I 3 l their ignorance, just as senior professors didn't like l
4 to reveal to their students that they didn't know how 1.
l to handle a personal computer so they just stayed away 5
6 from them.
j What you have to do is you have to provide
'l 7
H l'
8 4 a comfortable situation so that they're not afraid to i
I 9
reveal their ignorance and therefore are receptive to 10 learn.
I wonder if some thought might be given to the
{
11 possibility of offering special sessions for senior l
12 managers that would be reluctant to take a more I
13 elementary course in management, nevertheless one j
14 which they could definitely benefit from, because it's j
15 from a new perspective, a more current perspective.
16 You might even have to label it something, you know, 17 Principles of Management for Senior Managers or 18 something, but an effort to address the reluctance of 19 people to avail themselves of a valuable training I
l opportunity because they might be put in with people i
20 i
21 who are younger and less experienced than they are.
22 You know, there's always that hesitation
)
t 23 somehow to put yourself at risk in a certain sense and i
t 24 show your ignorance.
It can be very valuable and very 25 helpful to do that, but sometimes people are afraid to i
t NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTE.RS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W i
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71 1
take that step and I wonder if some thought might be 2
given to at least that kind of an opportunity.
l 3 4 MR. BIRD:
I can speak to that a little i
4 bit, I think.
We do customize and custom tailor i
5 training.
In fact, when we worked with Region IV we c
6 did that to some extent for their application.
We can I
7 and will work with any office to do that, but we also 8
take advantage of opportunities like the senior i
9 executive conferences that we had and other meetings i
10 where senior managers are together to tap into these
[
i 11 subject areas.
So to some extent it's going on on 12 multiple fronts, but we can certainly customize to 13 suit any audience to do this.
l 14 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Yes.
- Well, 15 Management 101 might be good for all of us to take i
I 16 sometime, but maybe not with the undergraduates.
]
17 The other point that I just wanted to come i
i 18 back to is I thought Doctor Murley's remarks were very 19 important about the technical nature of this agency 20 and I think that it is important to take every -- make 21 every ef fort that we can to see that we don't los,s our i
22 technical edge for any reason, and I'd like to simply i
t i
23 not only reinforce his commitment to that but also to l
I 24 point out that sometimes staying on top of a field j
25 technically requires exposure to the outside world, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORT [RS /sND TRANSCRWERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENVE N W i?D?) 2344433 WASHINGTON D C 20005
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72 1
not just the inside of NRC.
-l 6
2 You know, you've heard me say this many 3
times and it's not a new point, but I think that 4
training sometimes doesn't do the job.
There is a S
problem of an internal versus an external view of the 6
world and I think it is very important that technical 7
people be exposed regularly to what's happening in f
8 their field as perceived by people outside the Agency f
9 and I think that that's something that we must always f
i 10 keep in mind.
f 11 Thank you.
12 COMMISSIONER de PLANQUE:
Well, I would i
13 certainly second Commissioner Rogers' comments on the 14 mandatory training for the grandfathers.
Maybe the i
15 difference is you have cookies and milk and nap time
-j 16 in the afternoon session.
'i 17 But, Mr. Milhoan, are you talking about i
18 the practice in Region IV or is this common in all the 19 regions?
20 MR. MILHOAN:
It was the practice I used j
I 21 in Region IV and that applied to all of us in Region
[
i 22 IV, including myself.
i f
23 COMMISSIONER de PLANQUE:
Okay.
Well, I
[
f 24 would certainly commend that practice and think it's
{
t 25 something that we should look at more widely.
i NEAL R. GROSS i
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1 And also, back on the intern program and l
2 the co-op program, all of these programs, ea best as t
-i 3
I can tell, have been very successful in recruiting 4
more people in the minority end female categories and l
t f
I 5
I think we have to be very careful in a time of I
t 6
downsizing that we not lose these key opportunities.
,t-7 I think your statistics were very impressive, as are j
8 the ones ir.the report.
l 9 -
And then just one other curiosity that I j
10 have to ask about in the employee survey where'you j
f 11 compared the NRC results to the OPM results.
It 12 struck me as kind of interesting that the results were 13 so much in line with each other except for one where 14 the question was asked, "Do you think it's a great 15 place to work?"
The OPM survey had about 57 percent 16 and the NRC had 47 percent and I was really surprised 17 at that differential and I was wondering if there were 18 any comments in the surveys that might have given you f
19 a clue as to why that one was so obviously different i
20 when the others were so much in lock step.
23 MR. BIRD: We looked rather extensively at i
i 22 the survey and particularly the differences where we 23 were leaning one way and the OPM sample would tend to 24 be leaning the other way.
In that particular one 25 there seemed to be some element of difference overall l
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1323 AHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W 4202) 234 4 433 W ASHINGTON, D C. 20006 (202) 234 4433 f
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74 j
1 about " organizational effectiveness" in NRC wherein we i
2 were lower than the comparative group.
j 3
On the other
- hand, for management 4
effectiveness, in contrast, we were almost an equal 5
percentage higher.
Now we've talked about that.
I'm i
6 not sure quite what to make of it, but we seem to get 7
a response that says we're very effecti<e in managing 8
our human resources on the one hand with individual 9
managers doing a good job and on the other hand the 10 organizational effectiveness raises some question of 11 difference to the sample.
I riop,! t ha n a specific 12 answer to that,'but it is one area that we're focused 13 on and will look at and analyze further as we get into 14 this survey result.
15 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Excuse me.
If I 16 could just hop on that one, I wonder if you might, in 17 looking at that question of whether it's a great place 18 to work or not, examine it from the point of view of 19 the fact that some people feel uncomfortable being 20 identified with nuclear issues and that often I've 21 heard
- that, not necessarily people here at 22 Headquarters, but talking to people in the regions 23 sometimes that they don't like to reveal to their 24 neighbors that they work for the Nuclear Regulatory 25 Commission because that carries with it a concern NEAL R. GROSS cot >RT REPORTERS AND TRANSCR$ERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (20h 7344433 WASHINGTON. D C 20D05 (202) 2344433
75 1
about nuclear safety-and sometimes images, I think 2
falsely but nevertheless promoted, of people who are l
l 3
not concerned with nuclear safety, with public safety l
4 the way they should be, promotional and so on and so r
5 l
forth.
[
d i
6 l I wonder if when you look at this whether
[
r 7
that might not be an element with respect to it being i
8 a great place to work.
Sometimes, you know, being a 9
great place to work is the image that the organization.
10 itself carries with it, not just the particulars of i
11 the work place.
And I think there is a discomfort l
12 today in some folks' minds of being identified with 13 nuclear issues in any way, because you always have to 14 explain that what we do is we're concerned with l
I 15 nuclear safety and we're concerned - with civilian l
[
16 applications of nuclear materials and so on and so i
17 forth, but in many people's minds nuclear weapons and 18 nuclear power are all the same kind of a thing all 19 wrapped up together and it's all -- they're all bad.
20 MR. BIRD:
Yes, we hear this.
l 21 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
And so, you know, I 22 think that aspect might be something you might probe
[
I 23 a little bit if you want to try to understand that 24 question.
~
25 MR. BIRD: We do hear this occasionally in i
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recruitment efforts particularly, that our three --
2 l
the three words in our name are the three scariest q
words in the English language.
3 4
CliAIRMAN SELI!1: Especially " commission. "
5 MR. BIRD: We're always trying to explain.
6 CIIAIRMAN SELIN: I just read that question 7
wrong.
I thought the people at the NRC were asked if 8
this was a good place to work and 47 percent said yes l
9 and everybody else in the government was asked if the 10 NRC was a good place to work and 57 percent said yes.
i 11 COMMISSIONER de PLANQUE:
Since there are 12 no data, of course, on this, we're all free to 13 speculate.
14 The area that occurred to me was more
{
15 along the lines of the term " family friendly" plans.
i 16 that are available and the survey demonstrated a lot 17 of interest in those kinds of things, the flexi-place, 18 the flexi-time, telecommuting, all of those other 19 areas where I think some agencies are ahead of us in l
l 20 (
utilizing these programs, so that may be part of it
]
21 too.
22 MR. BIRD:
And of course, if you contrast 23 that on the compressed work schedules that we have for 24 a very large percentage of our people, the universal I
25 view is that's not available to them, a
l NEAL R. GROSS COURT RE PORTE AS AND TRAN$CHIBE RS 1323 AHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W i
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.. -... =
4
. - _ ~ -. - -.
t i
[
77-1 COMMISSIONER de PLANQUE: Yes, it's tough.
j 2
MR. BIRD: So there are some clear offsets I
3 throughout the survey.
4 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
I think we just have to 5
measure ourselves against our own standards primarily.
f 6
Most people who work here haven't worked in other ~
r 7
places.
I can tell you this is a terrific place to 8
work, especially if you happen to be the Chairman, but 9
it 's - a terrific place compared to other federal l
10 agencies.
l 11 But so what?
I
- mean, we have the 12 opportunity to make it a better place and a fairer i
13 place and whether other agencies have bigger problems j
14 than we do is -- you know, you have to keep track to l
15 make sure that we're not talking ourselves into 16 missing problems by what's going on elsewhere. But we 17 have our own standards.
We have our own
{
18 responsibility and that's what we have to live up to.
t 19 In any event, we thank you all very much 20 for these presentations.
We look forward to v
i 21 continuing to work with everybody in these areas.
22 Now we invite all of you to remain in the l
i 23 room for our award ceremony honoring our EEO l
24 counselors and I'll ask Vandy Miller to open this' l
25 segment of our session.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT Rf PORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE N W
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78 1
MR. MILLER:
We're ready now to start our 2
awards ceremony.
o!
Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, this 3
4 is a great moment for me to preside at this awards 5
program to recognize our EEO counselors.
We have a 6 b total of 31 EEO counselors spread throughout NRC and 7
the five regions.
Those counselors who will receive 8
an award today will have actually served a year or 9
more and we have 28 counselors who fit that category.
10 I mentioned during the EEO briefing our 11 i counselors over the years have been extremely 12 successful in working with employees, managers and 13 supervisors and the Office of Personnel to resolve 14 potential complaints to the satisfaction of all 15 parties.
This agency is indebted to each of them for 16 taking the time to assist in being responsive to the 17 concerns of employees and I would like you to join me 18 in applauding them for their dedication and a job well 19 done.
20 I would now like to call on our Chairman 21 for some remarks and recognition.
22 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
There really isn't much 23 more to say than Vandy has already said, but, when we 24 talk about all these programs at this level, all we're 25 trying to do is lay out some guidelines.
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1 responsibility for making sure that our equal 2.
employment opportunity programs work lies in the hands 4
3 of our counselors themselves.
There's a'large number 4
of people. Their pictures are on the wall in a number t
5 of places.
It's not the most pleasant work.
It tends 6
to put people who generally have full-time jobs l
7 elsewhere in conflict situations, sometimes dealing 8
with senior people that they don't get to see in 9 ;.
happier situations, but these people are able to do j
l 10 l more good than almost anybody else at the Agency.
i t
11 In many ways, I envy our EEO counselors 12 because not all of us can go home and talk to our i
i 13 spouses or friends and say, "You know, I did something l
14 really useful today," and the EEO counselors have that l
15 opportunity.
So, let us recognize them.
16 Thank you very much.
17 MR. MILLER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Now 18 if you and the EDO will stand right here, we will have i
4 19 the counselors to come up and receive their. awards at-l 20 this time.
21 So now we'll ask the counselors, will you 22 all please stand?
23 The first counselor to receive the award i
24 today is Ronald Albert.
l 25 I know you all want to give everybody a I
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big hand, so, if you just hold your applause until the j
2 end, we'll give them all-the same big applause at one 3
time.
4 The next counselor is Dennis Allison.
f 5
Josephine Bianchi, Region V.
6 Carrie Brown, NMSS.
I 7
Joseph Cawley, II, IRM.
I 8
Amar Datta, NMSS.
9 Tremaine Donnell, IRM.
10 Thelma Frazier, OC.
11 Gus Giese-Koch, NRR.
12 Dianne Griggs, IP.
i 13 Claude Johnson, Region IV.
I 14 Michael King, IRM.
15 Jean Lee.
16 David Lintroth, Region I.
+
17 Wan-Chen Liu, Research.
I 18 Timothy McCartin, Research.
19 Linda McLean, Region IV.
20 Sharon Mearse, ADM.
21 John Minns, NRR.
22 Jerome Schapker, Region III.
23 Cherie Siegel, AEOD.
24 Susan Smith, IRM.
i i
25 Bruno Uryc, Jr.,
Region II.
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Now we have some others that are not here 1
2 today, but they will be awarded their plaques by their 3 !
management later.
Those individuals are:
4 Hollis Turner, Region II; 5
Victor McCree, EDO; 6
Wayne Slawinski, Region III; 7
Elizabeth Suarez, NMSS; 8
Tracy Walker, Region 1.
i 9
At this time that ends the award ceremony 10 for this room, but we do want.to recognize these 11 wonderful counselors across the hall in 1F-7 and 9
)
12-where you will receive some refreshments and meet them 13 at the same time.
14
.Thank you very much.
15 (Whereupon, at 11:50 a.m.,
the above-l 16 entitled matter was adjourned.)
17 18 19 20 t
21 i
22 9
4 23 1
24 25 l
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CERTIFICATE OF TRANSCRIBER This is to certify that the attached events of a meeting of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission entitled:
TITLE OF MEETING:
PERIODIC BRIEFING ON EE0 PROGRAM PLACE OF MEETING:
ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND DATE OF MEETING:
DECEMBER 7, 1993 were transcribed by me. I further certify that said transcription is accurate and complete, to the best of my ability, and that the transcript is a true and accurate record of the foregoing events.
r M A,~
-. a, 4 3 t
7 Reporter's name:
Peter Lynch HEAL R. GROSS COURT Rf*otTWR$ AND TRAM $caisets 1323 RM006 ISLAMD AYfMUE, N.W.
gg) m WASMeetTON DE 20005 (m) 232M
I
=*e
-%s AWARD CEREMONY'FOR THE'NRC;EEO COUNSELORS DECEMBER 7,1993[flg N))
/..
Please remain immediately after the EEO Commluio,n Briefing for a short Award Ceremony in -recognition of the NRC EEO, Counselors. After the utremony, please join the honored counselors, the Commissioners and the SHCR staf f for refresinnents in Rooms 1F7/9 (across the~ hallway from the Commis-sioners' flearing Room).
CONGRATULATIONS hO THE FOLLO VING EEO COUNSELORS Ronald J. Albert, RI Wan-Chen Liu, RES Dennis J. Allison, AEOD Timothy J. McCartin, RES losephine R. Bianchi. RV Victor M. McCree, NRR Carrie Brown, NMSS Linda M. McLean, RIV losoph T. Cawley,11, IRM Sharon D. Mearse, ADM Amarendranath Datta, NMSS John L. Minns, NP.R Tremaine U Donnell, IRM jerome F. Schapkcr, Rill Thelma A. Frazier, OC Cherie Siegel, AEOD Gus Giese-Koch, NRR Wayne J. Slawinski, Rlll Dianne Griggs, IP Susan Y. Smith, IRM Claude E. Johnson, RIV Elizabeth Suarez, NMSS Michael E. King. IRM Hollis A. Turner, RII
- l. Ican Lee, NRR Bruno Uryc, RIl David F. Limroth, RI Tracy E. Walker, RI EQU5L EUPEO M'E5Ylii'P idiiNIT l
COUNSELOR AWARD i
s fl f'
l 1
(Name of Counselor) j IN RECOGNITION OF INVALUABLE SERVICE AS AN EEO COUNSELOR i
December 7,1993