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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
***
BRIEFING ON EEO PROGRAM
***
PUBLIC MEETING
Nuclear Regulatory Commission
One White Flint North
Room 1G-16
Rockville, Maryland
Wednesday, July 31, 1996
The Commission met in open session, pursuant to
notice, at 2:07 p.m., Shirley A. Jackson, Chairman,
presiding.
COMMISSIONERS PRESENT:
SHIRLEY A. JACKSON, Chairman of the Commission
KENNETH C. ROGERS, Member of the Commission
GRETA J. DICUS, Member of the Commission
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STAFF AND PRESENTERS SEATED AT THE COMMISSION TABLE:
PAUL BIRD, Director, Office of Personnel
PETER BLOCH, Affirmative Action Advisory Committee
JOSE IBARRA, Hispanic Employees Program Advisory
Committee
SUBINOY MAZUMDAR, Asian Pacific American Advisory
Committee
REGINALD MITCHELL, Advisory Committee for African
Americans
LARRY PITTIGLIO, Joint Labor-Management Equal
Employment Opportunity Committee
ROXANNE SUMMERS, Federal Women's Program Advisory
Committee
JAMES TAYLOR, EDO
EDWARD TUCKER, Director, Office of Small Business
and Civil Rights
LAWRENCE VICK, Committee on Age Discrimination
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P R O C E E D I N G S
[2:07 p.m.]
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Good afternoon, ladies and
gentlemen.
I could say I know what everyone is interested in.
Our briefings are never this full.
[Laughter.]
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: The Commission is meeting today
to discuss the status of the Agency's Equal Employment
Opportunity Program, with particular focus on the status of
Agency efforts during the first half of fiscal year 1996.
As you know, Section 209 of the Energy
Reorganization Act of 1974, as amended, requires that the
Executive Director for Operations report on the status of
NRC EEO efforts as well as any problems and progress
associated with those efforts at semi-annual public
commission meetings. The last Commission meeting on EEO
matters was held on December 14, 1995.
Today's meeting will include a discussion by the
staff of the NRC EEO efforts and, as has been our practice,
a discussion of issues identified by the various EEO
advisory committees.
I welcome each of you and each of you in the
audience who, through your attendance, display your
commitment to helping the NRC continue to strengthen its EEO
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activities. Before the staff begins its presentation, let
me share the following thoughts.
Each of us is aware that, at a time of government-
wide budget reductions, streamlining and downsizing, it is
important that the NRC effectively utilize its human
resources and that it maintain an environment where all
employees can contribute their unique skills and talents
toward achieving the Agency's mission. Managers and
employees need to work together toward that end.
Supervisors must be fair and objective in rating
their employees and in identifying employees whose sustained
performance merits special recognition, regardless of race,
gender, national origin, age or disability. Employees
should continue to seek training, rotational and other
developmental opportunities to broaden and to enhance their
performance.
I commend the staff and the EEO advisory
committees for their dedication and look forward to hearing
more about the activities and issues so aptly described in
the paper. I am particularly interested in hearing about
the process by which any unresolved EEO advisory committee
concerns will be addressed.
Commissioner Rogers, Commissioner Dicus?
COMMISSIONER ROGERS: I have no comments.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Dicus?
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COMMISSIONER DICUS: No.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: If you have no comments,
Mr. Taylor, you may proceed.
MR. TAYLOR: Good afternoon.
With me at the table, on my right, are Paul Bird
of the Office of Personnel, on my left Ed Tucker, the Acting
Director of the Office of Small Business and Civil Rights.
Also at the table are the chairs and representatives of the
various advisory committees, the EEO advisory committees,
and I will now ask Ed Tucker to introduce those persons.
MR. TUCKER: Thank you, Mr. Taylor.
On may far left is Mr. Reginald Mitchell, who is
the Chair of the Committee for African Americans. Next to
him is Mr. Jose Ibarra, Chair of the Hispanic Employees
Program Advisory Committee. Next to him is Ms. Roxanne
Summers, who is Chair of the Federal Women's Program
Advisory Committee. And next to her is Mr. Larry Vick, who
is Chair of the Committee on Age Discrimination.
On my far right is Mr. Larry Pittiglio, who is the
Co-Chair of the Joint Labor-Management EEO Advisory
Committee. Next to him is the spokesperson for the
Affirmative Action Advisory Committee, Mr. Peter Bloch.
Next to him is Mr. Subinoy Mazumdar, Chair of the Asian
Pacific American Advisory Committee.
MR. TAYLOR: Thank you, Ed.
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I would note that today's briefing marks a
departure from previous briefings and is primarily a six-
month status update. Therefore, we will not look at
detailed statistics and data analyses but, instead, will
provide a brief status report on progress made in achieving
the Agency's EEO goals and Affirmative Action objectives
during the first half of this fiscal year.
The information paper you received prior to this
briefing provided you with an update in six areas on which
the Agency has been focusing: Enhancing opportunities for
recruiting Hispanic employees, enhancing opportunities for
recruiting women and minorities in professional positions,
expanding the pool of women and minorities for supervisory,
management, executive and senior level positions, improving
opportunities for attracting, developing and retaining
disabled employees, finding training and developmental
opportunities and improving communication about EEO and
Affirmative Action objectives and evaluating progress made.
The paper also provided you with the staff
response to the Commission's question following our last EEO
brief as well as demographic data and statements from the
advisory committees.
You may recall that the committees prepared a
joint statement last year containing nine common goals.
These were published in the December 1995 EEO information
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paper. You asked the staff to respond to these nine common
goals, which we did in April, and a copy of our response was
included in our most recent July 10, 1996, information
paper.
The EEO advisory committees have agreed that some
of these common goals have been reached and wish to work
collaboratively to realize some of the other goals that are
of particular importance to them.
In a few moments, Ms. Roxanne Summers, Chair of
the Federal Women's Program Advisory Committee, will speak
on behalf of all of the committees on their collective
agenda and plan. I am pleased that the committees have
agreed to work cooperatively on common issues.
At the December 1995 meeting, I said I would look
into whether Asian Pacific Americans who appeared on the
best qualified lists were being overlooked in selections for
high-graded positions. Paul Bird will address our findings
on that matter at the end of my remarks.
I also wanted to take this opportunity to convey
to you that despite our downsizing efforts since 1992, in
most instances, the proportion of minorities and women hired
and selected for various positions and programs has
continued to increase. For example, since the end of fiscal
year 1992, total staff has decreased by 9.9 percent but
representation of women and minorities in professional
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positions has increased by 8.8 percent. Similarly, since
the end of fiscal year 1992, staff at grades 13 to 15 has
decreased by 2.4 percent but women in this group have
increased by 13.6 percent. African Americans in this group
have increased by 12.7 percent, Hispanics in this group have
increased by 20.7 percent, Asian Pacific Americans have
increased by 9 percent and Native Americans in this group
have remained the same.
It will continue to be a challenge, as you noted,
Chairman, in times of downsizing and budget and FTE cuts to
improve our representation of women and minorities as
employees but I believe everyone at this table is committed
to doing just that.
Paul Bird will now continue with findings relative
to the Asian Pacific Americans on the best qualified list.
Paul?
MR. BIRD: Thank you, Mr. Taylor.
As Mr. Taylor mentioned at our last EEO briefing
in December, a concern was raised regarding Asian Pacific
Americans being overlooked in selections for higher-level
positions, especially those positions at grade 14 and above.
We have taken a look at this issue and I would like to
convey our findings at this time.
In a broad context, approximately 55 percent of
the Agency staff is now at grade 14 and above. In
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comparison, approximately 72 percent of all Asian Pacific
Americans at the NRC are at those grade levels. In FY '96
through July 18, Asian Pacific Americans were on the best
qualified lists for 16 NRC competitive positions at grades
14 and 15. Of these 16 opportunities to select, four Asian
Pacific Americans or 25 percent were selected. Only one of
these 16 opportunities was for a supervisory position,
however. One Asian American was among the best qualified
for that opportunity but was not selected.
Also in this same time frame, there were no SES
positions posted for which Asian Pacific Americans were
among the best qualified. There were two senior level
service selections made during this time and, although Asian
Pacific Americans were on the best qualified lists for those
positions, they were not selected.
In this review, we found that Asian Pacific
Americans appear to be receiving appropriate consideration
for higher-level positions and that during the first part of
fiscal year 1996, several Asian Pacific Americans have been
selected for a number of these positions.
We certainly will continue to monitor, work with
SPCR and with the Asian Pacific American Advisory Committee
to ensure that Asian Pacific Americans in the NRC continue
to receive full consideration for all our positions at all
levels.
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That concludes my remarks at this time and I will
return the program to Ed Tucker.
MR. TUCKER: Thank you, Mr. Bird.
One of the primary goals of the Agency's Equal
Employment Opportunity Program is to identify well-qualified
minorities and women that can compete for positions and
contribute to programs and activities relative to the
mission of the Agency.
Although we have a legitimate interest in
increasing the participation rate of underrepresented
minorities and women, we are cognizant of the need to
develop policies and initiatives that are the least
intrusive and do not harm the rights of any interest group.
As Mr. Taylor indicated, we are pleased that, during these
times of downsizing and the reduction of the supervisor to
employee ratio, we have still been able to make some
progress, especially with regard to recruitment of
minorities and women for important developmental initiatives
such as the Nuclear Reactor Regulation Reactor Intern
Program, the Graduate Fellowship Program and the Resident
Inspector Development Program.
We have been working closely with the constituency
group committees over the past several months and, as
Mr. Taylor further indicated, we are pleased with the
efforts of the committees to form joint working groups to
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review various generic issues and attempt to develop
strategies and recommendations that will take into
consideration the interest of all groups.
Finally, I would like to say that the staffs of
SBCR, Personnel and OGC have completed what we termed "town
meetings" with headquarters and regional managers and
supervisors for the purpose of discussing the overall EEO
program goals and objectives, lessons learned and the
responsibilities of managers and supervisors in assisting to
implement the program. We feel that this type of dialogue
is extremely beneficial to the staff and we plan a new round
of meetings, possibly commencing during the fall of this
year.
At this time, we will have comments by Ms. Roxanne
Summers, who is representing the various EEO committees.
MS. SUMMERS: Thank you, Mr. Tucker, and thank you
for having us here today. It is a pleasure to speak on
behalf of the EEO committees and on behalf of FWPAC. It is
a pleasure to see so many women on your side of the table.
I notice that you outnumber those on this side of the table.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: That is only temporary.
[Laughter.]
MS. SUMMERS: The package that you have before you
contains a joint statement on behalf of all of the
committees as well as a separate statement from each
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individual committee and that does represent the way that we
have begun to work together more closely. We do feel that
the issues most of the time don't concern just one group but
are common issues not only to women and minorities but
sometimes to all employees and so we feel that proceeding
this way with a joint statement, I think the last briefing
that you had was the first time we collaborated like that,
we feel this is a positive step and is reflective of the way
we are working together.
You heard Mr. Tucker speak and I think Mr. Taylor
also mentioned that we are setting up joint working groups
where members from each of the committees will work together
to look at certain issues that we think are important.
The first three issues that we have chosen are the
issue of pre-selection, the issue of diversity in
communications training, the issue of performance
monitoring. We will start with those. We will also discuss
a paper written by Clarice Nizer on reviewing job functions
as a result of enhanced information technology capabilities.
In other words, really, what does the advent of computers
mean for many of our employees.
So, as we have been working closely together, we
have, however, resisted the effort to make us into one joint
diversity committee for two reasons. We do feel that we
have -- we do this work mostly on our own time, as much as
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we possibly can and, due to work loads and other job
responsibilities, there are only a few people who can
actually work on any given issue at one time. We feel that
if we are combined into one committee, that will probably
result in fewer members and fewer bodies actually to do the
work. That is one reason. But we also feel that we would
miss some of the representation that we have on the issues
that are important to each of the individual committees. If
we only had one or two members representing those
committees, we might not have as broad a representation on
the issues as we think would be valuable. So we would like
to keep our separate committees even though we are working
much more closely together.
We do welcome the new spirit of cooperation with
the Office of Small Business and Civil Rights and with the
NRC staff and we look forward to working with them to find
some solutions to the issues I have mentioned and the issues
that you find in these papers. I might add, I was asked to
say that the union shares the opinions that we expressed in
our joint statement and also on behalf of FWPAC, we strongly
support the joint labor/management statement that you find
in your package.
So I thank you for this opportunity and we welcome
any questions. All of the committee chairmen will respond
individually.
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CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Well, my initial questions
probably are directed more to the staff.
You have a chart, it is 1.3, which shows no
minority females in SES positions. Can you just tell me a
little bit about how this is being addressed, if at all, or
what you think the prospects are for improving or
increasing, having some number show up.
MR. BIRD: I certainly believe the prospects are
good and that in the future that might not be the data that
is showing. I certainly know that the pool of women,
including minority women, that are available now for
competition to SES positions and that are included in the
SES candidate development pool represent a good opportunity
for this agency to look at those candidates, they are very
viable candidates and, in my view, I don't believe that will
continue to be a statistic that does not reflect that
minority women are included in the SES ranks.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: let me ask another question.
On page 5 of the paper, you have some limited data on EEO
complaints and, I guess, since we are talking the statistics
of small numbers, the question becomes what conclusion do
you feel the Commission should draw from the comparison of
five complaints being filed during the six months versus 18
during FY '95 with 12 complaints being held in inventory
pending a final disposition? Are there any pending
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complaints behind the statistics here that could lead to any
grievances or lawsuits or is that something you can talk
about?
MR. BIRD: Ed is probably in a better position to
speak to that in terms of formal complaints. I can say
before Ed speaks there are some complaints that we work with
SBCR on that come in through the institutional grievance
procedure and we are treating some complaints that aren't
reflected in that statistic through that process. But I
think Ed could speak to the chart itself.
MR. TUCKER: Well, I think that is an accurate
statement.
The process is that if an individual feels that
there is a problem associated with some personnel action,
they must consult an EEO counselor and be counseled by that
individual. Following the counseling process, which lasts
up to 30 days and could be extended for an additional 60
days based on the approval of the office of SBCR, the person
gets a notice of final interview and at that time the
individual could file a grievance and raise the EEO issue
under the grievance process or they could file a complaint
under Title VII.
So there are some grievances or complaints that
are under the grievance process that don't show up in these
statistics. We have, I think, at this point about eight
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complaints. This data in the paper just shows up to March
31 the information on complaints but currently we have about
eight formal complaints in the works.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Let me ask you another
question. On page 6, you indicate that non-selected job
candidates can contact various sources such as personnel
specialists, supervisors or career counselors to get
constructive feedback in terms of performance and what they
might do to make themselves more competitive. How often and
when are employees reminded of these avenues and how
successful have they been in the past?
MR. BIRD: Well, let me --
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: And then the next question is,
do the personnel specialists and supervisors receive any
training in job counseling of this sort?
MR. BIRD: Let me answer the last question first.
Our training programs for supervisors do include segments on
providing feedback to employees, how to provide feedback,
what feedback is appropriate, how to communicate with regard
to selections and so forth.
In addition, in our town meetings, we have
addressed those issues with the managers. We talked to
individual managers quite often, we, SBCR and OGC, about how
to communicate back the results or questions that might come
up relative to selections or grievances or promotions or
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anything of that nature.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Is this done in an ad hoc
manner or is it on a systematic basis.
MR. BIRD: It is done more on an ad hoc manner.
We have not put out formal guidance to employees or to
managers and supervisors recently, although some of that
guidance is included in training materials. But we do plan
to do that; we plan to notify the employees and remind them
of these sources of information and encourage them to tap
these sources and that would include, as you mentioned, the
personnel management staff associated with a particular job,
selecting officials, rating panel members, in order to try
to obtain constructive feedback.
I think the word "constructive" is very important
because that certainly would be the effort to try to enhance
the chances that those employees getting that feedback could
do things that would suggest that they might be better
candidates for the next job that might come up. We are
planning to do that. We are planning some additional
efforts with the managers and supervisors specifically with
regard to this. I think that is very important and Ed and
OGC staff and we have talked about means of being able to go
out and advise the managers on how to respond.
We are also going to do something further in that
regard and that is talk with OPM and other federal agencies
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and perhaps even some private sector employers about how
they do this, about how do they communicate these things
back, particularly to employees who are not selected for
jobs. We hope out of that we will be able to consider some
best practices and then perhaps institute or plan to develop
a limited pilot program which would call on selecting
officials to provide constructive feedback to nonselective
job candidates who are on the best qualified lists,
particularly at the beginning, because this could become
negotiable later on, for non-bargaining unit positions.
Then, based on that pilot program, if this is constructive
and if it is helpful and worthwhile, I would suspect we
would want to expand on that.
So we are going to move out proactively to try to
address this. I know we are planning to meet with the EEO
committees to discuss ways to do this. My staff will
certainly be involved in that effort on the things that
Roxanne mentioned and hopefully out of that, we will be able
to develop something that is a means of getting constructive
feedback as a result of this process.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Let me ask you this, does the
Office of Small Business and Civil Rights participate on the
Executive Resource Board Review Group?
MR. TUCKER: No. Well, let me clarify that.
Barbara Williams, who is the Federal Women's
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Program Manager and Affirmative Action person, she does
serve as the secretary, I believe, on that particular review
group but we do not have a participant as such on that
particular board.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Has any consideration been
given as to whether SBCR should participate?
MR. BIRD: Well, I believe Barbara does
participate quite often as do members of my staff.
Certainly, they are encouraged at all times. That is not
something I think would present any problem having them
there or having them participate, quite frankly.
MR. TAYLOR: We will give you more on that, too.
We will follow up on that.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: That would be helpful.
Tell me a little more about what you are doing in
terms of monitoring training programs to improve programs
for employee development and also what you are doing
relative to expanding opportunities for the disabled.
MR. BIRD: Okay. Let me speak to training first
of all.
Certainly, training has been and will continue to
be evaluated on a regular basis. Even the development of a
training course, we will elicit feedback from office staff
with regard to the nature of what we are hoping to
accomplish in the course. We will then develop the course
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from that. Quite often, we will pilot the course, invite a
cross-section of people from the agency to participate and
give us comments and then, most often, we will revise a
course based on that input.
After the course is presented, we are sort of
continually monitoring, getting an evaluation at the
completion of the course, looking at the evaluations and
tweaking the course appropriately based on those
evaluations. I might say we also look at training larger --
longer training programs such as our candidate development
programs and did quite a bit of revamping of that program
when we reintroduced it in 1993.
In addition to that, we had previously been
participating in a program known as the executive -- what
was the name of that -- Executive Potential Program, which
was an OPM sponsored program to develop supervisors. We
assessed that to the point that we felt, based on feedback
from those that participated as well as those managers who
were recipients of people who attended that training that it
was not effective training.
We subsequently dropped out of the participation
in that program and developed our own supervisory
development program which I think is a much better and more
viable program and I guess the feedback that we've gotten so
far would support that, to really train managers for the
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NRC.
I think those developmental opportunities are
certainly a suggestion of how our training is being
monitored.
There is one thing we are planning to do that I
think may be responsive to your interest and that is, in
addition to those things I have mentioned, we are planning,
for some programs, training programs, after about three
months do a followup with both the employees who
participated and the managers who are the recipients or the
beneficiaries of the training to see how well that worked.
Was this effective, did the employees gain better skills,
are they better able to do their jobs as a result of the
training? And, hopefully, based on the feedback from both
the manager who was the recipient and the employee who
participated, we can do refinements for that.
I don't believe as many courses we give we can do
that for every course but that was certainly the key ones
and the key programs. That is how we would plan to approach
and address that in the future. We're getting sufficient
feature to know there is a payoff, there's a bottom line
associated with having given these training opportunities.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Then opportunities for the
disabled?
MR. BIRD: Yes. As you recall, the last time we
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met there was a question as to why the percentage of
disabled that had self-identified in the Agency had dropped.
I suggested at that time that perhaps we should resurvey.
That particular program or that identification is based on a
confidential entry that employees volunteer to us. We do
hold that confidentially and we do do it periodically to
update our records. Of course, as a result of that, our
number increased from 172 to 205, which is basically a 19
percent increase in those who self-identified. But we also
know that there are disabled employees who don't self-
identify. Either they didn't fit the categories that were
shown on the particular identification form or they don't
choose to voluntarily do this.
We are trying to be more proactive in addressing
disabled employees in general. We are developing and we had
out about two years ago a brochure that listed a whole
variety of things that we were doing on behalf of disabled
employees. We have updated that. That is about to be
republished and, certainly, I think that will be something
that will be useful to employees and managers to know the
resources that we make available.
Maybe I should just mention a few of those that we
have been involved with. One was the placement of key card
boxes to make sure that we can accommodate disabled. The
delay times on the doors, as you might have noticed, have
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been changed and the elevators have been changed. Ramps, we
have added ramps, allowed parking spaces near elevators.
Those are some of the more common things.
I think, beyond that, there are some things that
might not be well known. We have provided special equipment
including wheelchairs, ergonomic chairs, special computer
telecommunications software, telephone receiver amplifying
devices, professional readers, optical scanners. We will
arrange certainly for sign language interpreters for
important meetings. We do offer a training course also. It
is called Working With People With Disabilities and we think
this is a very good way to have people know how to respond
and react in working with disabled employees.
Even the fitness center, in the development of the
fitness center, we also took that into account and have a
number of things in the fitness center, including an upper
body ergometer, which allows aerobic activity for disabled
employees. So we are trying to take that into account on
all fronts and educate the staff and supervisors in ways to
do this and my staff is certainly available to work with
anyone who would want to address this type of an issue.
MR. TUCKER: I might add that each year the Agency
submits an annual report to the U.S. Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission on initiatives designed to increase
the number of disabled employees that we hire and we also
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submit an accomplished report to the EEOC.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: You have charts 1.9 to 1.11
that show the number of minorities in let's call them SES
feeder groups, the grades below. How many in those groups
are currently SES qualified, do you know? And how many of
these are women?
MR. BIRD: I don't know that I could do, from that
chart, certainly, I can't get that information. I can ask
my staff if they could look for the information of those
that are in the candidate development program.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: You could just provide it.
MR. BIRD: In the candidate development program,
did you ask for minority women or minorities?
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Minorities and women.
MR. BIRD: Let me just count real quickly.
I believe the count is six, if I read that
correctly. We will double check that, but I believe that is
correct, of those that are in the candidate development
program that are basically prequalified for SES.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Then of the groups that we are
interested in in this briefing, as represented by the
committees, we talked about various reorganizations and
streamlining. Were there any decreases in terms of the
number of supervisors as a result of reorganizations of
these groups?
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MR. BIRD: Yes. Of course, overall, there was a
substantial decrease in the agency. We then looked at the
impact on minority groups and women and found that, in
general, there had been less impact on minorities and women
than there has been on white men.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Okay. Last question for now.
I don't want to take the whole show. You know, the
committees have issued a joint statement of issues and I
think the Commission appreciates that. There were nine
issues identified in the December '95 briefing and then
there were topics that remained to be resolved to the
satisfaction of the committees and I will just read them out
and you can tell me if these are, in fact, the right ones:
Monitoring and evaluation of Affirmative Action
programs, strategic planning, management accountability,
increased representation of women and minorities, which we
have already been speaking to, and examination and report on
specific concerns of EEO committees and root causes.
Then there were two new issues that were raised by
the Committee having to do with the need for a strong and
independent Office of Small Business and Civil Rights and
the issue of preselection which Ms. Summers mentioned in her
remarks. So I guess I am inviting you, Ms. Summers, if you
would like to comment on these areas as to where you think
things stand with respect to the follow-on issues and if you
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would like to elaborate on your two new ones. Then I would
like to ask Mr. Bird or whomever, Mr. Taylor or Mr. Tucker,
to comment on what process we have in place for resolving
these issues.
MS. SUMMERS: I am not sure I will hit all of them
but one of the working groups will look at monitoring so
that is a second one that I mentioned that will be taken up
with our working groups. As far as strategic planning is
concerned, I believe that one is being -- that is on sort of
hold while we wait to see what the results of the strategic
planning initiative are.
As far as the increased -- we have discussed -- I
think the staff has discussed some of the statistics. We
might want to bring up some other statistics that haven't
been mentioned here as specific committees might wish to do
but, speaking for all the committees, I think enough maybe
has been said about that.
We were concerned, as a group of committees, with
the response that we had been getting at some times from the
staff on our concerns. At some points, we felt that some of
our concerns were being not addressed and we didn't really
have a reason why they hadn't been addressed or the reason
that we were given didn't seem to be satisfactory. That is
one of the reasons why we are setting up these working
groups to work more closely with the SBCR office.
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The root causes for some of those issues are very
complex and I don't think it is easy for the staff to come
up with answers. But I think we see a new willingness now
on the part of the SBCR to look for issues and look for
answers to those issues and I hope that's the case and I
hope that will continue when the head of that office is
chosen.
The new issues that we raised, one of them is
exactly that. We felt that there could be a conflict of
interest by having the head of the Small Business Civil
Rights Office report to the EDO rather than report to the
Commission, that the whole objective of finding potential
problems with some of the ways in which selections have been
made and things like that would reflect, perhaps, negatively
on the upper management which is also the management of the
head of the Office of Small Business and Civil Rights and
perhaps that would be something that could be changed. I
checked and found that many of the other agencies do have
the head of the EEO office or whatever it is called and
other agencies reporting directly to the head of the other
agency so I think there is some justification for
considering that.
In terms of preselection, I think it is the
feeling of the committees that this is not an issue that is
limited only to women and minorities. That it is a problem
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that affects a very large number of employees here and I do
hope that our working group will be able to identify some
remedies for that because I think if you -- if each employee
feels that they are being fairly considered for the jobs
they apply for, regardless of whether they are women and
minorities, if they are being fairly considered then I don't
think we have an EEO problem in the agency.
MR. PITTIGLIO: If I could, I would like to
emphasize one aspect of what Ms. Summers had said. We are
gratified at this point that the joint committees of the EEO
committees are working together with the staff. I am
particularly gratified at the statement of cooperation that
Mr. Bird made at the table today.
But the important thing is that there is this
cooperation that is promised and that means active
negotiation and goodwill and an effort to see the different
difficulties and the different points of view and I am
optimistic that this is going to mean a more constructive
approach in the future so that the acrimony that you have
seen at this table at times is not going to be present any
longer.
MR. BIRD: Yes, I certainly think we have common
objectives in trying to provide a fair and equitable system
and one that employees trust is as good as we can make it
and I think those are the bottom line, at least as far as I
. 29
am concerned, of trying to approach these working groups.
Some of these issues are very elusive issues and
they are hard issues to deal with, in some cases even hard
issues to talk about and discus. But we will certainly
continue to do that and I think the whole theme of the
spirit of cooperation, working together, trying to answer
questions, even deal with difficult questions sometimes is
the nature of what we are trying to accomplish and do and I
have worked very closely with many of the people at this
table in that regard and I know my staff has and we would
continue to do that.
I think that communication is one of our key
issues and I think this is certainly a means for that to
carry on and hopefully get to some productive solutions for
everybody and constructive solutions. So I certainly
support that effort, as I believe Ed does.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Rogers, do you
have any comments or questions?
COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Nothing specifically right
at the moment.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Dicus?
COMMISSIONER DICUS: Yes.
One of the issues that has been raised previously
by the advisory committees and one that has concerned the
committees as I have gone back and done a little review of
. 30
this is the committees' desire to have data systematically
developed to address various committee concerns. Now, when
this issue was raised, the response to the concern noted
that there was reluctance to expend some of the agency's
resources when they, of course, obviously are finite to
collect data that had not been previously collected in areas
where there is limited historic indications of the problems.
So if that is the background, the question
concerns the fact that as new systems are developed to track
or maintain databases on personnel issues, what is being
done to determine if the newly implemented systems can
include data that is requested or might be requested by the
committees to assure that there is a cost effective
opportunity to develop better databases before those data
might be lost?
MR. BIRD: I'll try to respond to that with an
example.
One of the issues that the committees were
concerned about and therefore we became concerned about was
trying to monitor by ethnicity those on best qualified
lists. We didn't have any automated means of doing that.
The records were -- some of the records, historically, were
in the warehouse. Some records had been destroyed over
time. It was a very large set of records that would have to
have been gone through in order to do that.
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We now have an automated system which collects
that data. Of course there is a resource cost that you have
to put the data into the system, but we are doing that and
we have been able to do some things or some analysis at
least regarding our best qualified lists that we weren't
able to do in the past and I think those types of things
certainly have to be well thought through. Hopefully, you
know, it would be worth the investment to make an automated
system and to continue an automated system and feed an
automated system to provide data.
But I think that is a good example of where it
does provide an additional means for monitoring that we
didn't have previously. So I would think that we continue
down that path, that as these automated systems improve, we
will be in a better position to make good, rational
decisions with regard to those that lend themselves to that.
MR. PITTIGLIO: Commissioner Dicus, I believe that
there is an ongoing effort to get new data for personnel
and, so far, that is not working in tandem with the work
force, the task force group that is going to be looking at
the same issue. I would hope that, as we evolve that
effort, there will be a tandem effort to decide what you are
going to collect in the future and what the goals are going
to be.
COMMISSIONER DICUS: I would encourage that.
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CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Well, if there are no further
comments, I would like to bring this briefing to a close by
thanking all of the participants for their insights,
comments and suggestions. Even though it was shorter than
the allotted time, this was a comprehensive briefing. I am
assuming a shorter time because we do have this more focused
approach and the cooperativeness that each of you spoke
about. It is a briefing on a very important subject for
assuring that all NRC employees can work with pride and
achievement and without the resentment and frustration that
can result from concerns about EEO policies and practices
all around.
So you are to be commended for what appear to be
quite assiduous efforts in implementing and strengthening
the Agency's EEO program and I encourage each of you to
continue to play a significant role in ensuring that NRC
enhances its EEO program, particularly as we engaged in the
strategic assessment and re-baselining effort currently
under way.
I will expect that NRC managers and supervisors
will do their best to help each of their employees reach
their full potential and to effectively accomplish the
agency's mission. This requires activism, planning, good
communications and goodwill.
If there are no other comments, we are adjourned.
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[Whereupon, at 2:58 p.m., the briefing was
concluded.]
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