The Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has asked for public comments on the current practice under the Circular A-76 process of comparing the cost of work performed by Federal employees against that of contractors. In addition to assessing how to improve OFPP’s efforts to “identify the most cost-effective source”, the OFPP also seeks feedback that will help it evaluate existing policies on public-private cost comparisons and to consider new policies that can help agencies save money and achieve better results.

The OFPP asks for responses that consider how agencies may achieve further savings and drive even better results through the use of cost comparisons in appropriate circumstances. Ithe OFPP defines the process of cost comparison here as comparing the cost of a private sector contractor performing a defined task, or set of tasks, to the cost of having Federal employees perform the same task(s) where the work is suitable for performance by either sector.

For many years, employee strikes were common and often in the news while lockouts by employers were rare. Today, lockouts have become far more common than in years past. There are reasons employers have become more willing to lock out their employees. 

In both lockouts and strikes, an employer's workers are not working, so it may seem that the only difference between the two is who made the decision for the employees to be out of work. Employees strike when they think striking will put pressure on their employer to agree to the employees' demands. Employers lock out workers who want to continue working to pressure them to accept contract terms the employer wants.

But like the employer's ability to impose its proposal when the parties are at impasse, the lockout has become a powerful employer bargaining tool, while the strike has been declawed. What is most puzzling about these results is that the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) says that the right to strike is to be protected, but says nothing about protecting the lockout. The explanation is that judges have judicially amended the NLRA to weaken strikes, while making lockouts far more powerful.

Copyright, Truthout.org. Reprinted with permission.

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First published online on May 17 in the Boston Review.