x=,B>A TIMES
NEWS FOR AND ABOUT EPA EMPLOYEES
Volume 6
Number 3
March 1989
Habit Kickers
Reversing a ruling of three years ago,
the GAO now says the federal
government may, if it wishes, pay the
tab for staffers who wish to attend
smoking cessation classes as part of a
general preventive health care
program. The classes sometimes run
to $150 per person. EPA and many
other agencies have encouraged
employees to give up the weed and
most have set up non-smoking zones,
but a number of malefactors abuse or
ignore the rules. Thus, the GAO
decision will come as good news, not
only to smokers who want to quit, but
to co-workers who desperately wish
they would. ~
15 Years of Dedication
EPA has presented a Black Achiever's
trd to George Coblyn of Lexington,
sachusetts. Coblyn has served as
iiqual Employment Officer for the
New England Regional Office for the
past 15 years and is now retiring.
The award was presented at a Black
History Month celebration for federal
employees sponsored by the National
Park Service on February 9. A plaque
was presented to Coblyn by Paul
Keough, EPA's Deputy Regional
Lunch with WOL's Kathy Hughes
On April 26 the Headquarters
Secretarial Advisory Committee
(SAC), in conjunction with the Office
of Civil Rights and the Federal
Women's Program, will be sponsoring
the fourth annual secretaries luncheon
to honor secretarial and
clerical-support staff at 11:30 A.M. at
the Boiling Officers' Club,
Washington, DC. Kathy Hughes,
president of WOL Radio, will be the
featured speaker. Managers are
encouraged to bring their secretaries
and support this event. Tickets can be
obtained through the luncheon
committee or the Office of Civil Rights
(Jacqueline Hawkins, 382-7700;
Administrator, who praised the
recipient for his record of superb
service to our employees.
"George Coblyn has worked hard to
attract minorities to EPA and make
sure that we had a strong affirmative
action program in place," Keough
said. "He has also worked with
minority businesses throughout New
England to make sure that they
received a fair share of Agency
contract money." ~
Shirley Waugh, 557-7092; Jacqueline
Walters, 382-3184; or Patricia Wilkins,
382-7040. The Offices of General
Counsel and Research and
Development will be recognized for
their generous financial contributions
to SAC and its programs. ~
New Headquarters
Charlie Grizzle, AA for
Administration, has announced that,
contrary to an account in the Post, no
final decision has been made with
regard to the choice of a location for
our new headquarters. A broad
consensus among EPA, GSA, OMB
and the Hill maintains that it should
stay in the District, but the issues of
size, cost, facilities and emplacement
are still being negotiated at press time.
Readers will be delighted to hear that
Grizzle's staff have been developing
technical specifications for a
state-of-the-art structure, one that will
exemplify the best in energy
conservation, environmental health,
and internal security. Information on
possible locations, in-house feeding
facilities, square-footage per person,
parking, public transportation, retail
access and so forth will be published
here from time to time. ~
Oops!
The name of John W. Lyon, Office of
Enforcement and Compliance
Monitoring, was inadvertently omitted
from the Times roster of staffers who
received gold medals for exceptional
service at EPA's 18th Annual Awards
Ceremony last December. Lyon was a
member of the National Municipal
Policy Team honored for its work in
bringing sewage treatment plants into
compliance with the Clean Water Act.
The Times regrets the omission. ~
Cobly and Keough

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Poison Prevention
Every year since 1961 the President
has designated the third week in
March as National Poison Prevention
Week. Its purpose is to raise
awareness in local communities of the
dangers of accidental poisoning and to
take common-sense preventive
measures.
The theme this year is "Children
Act Fast...So Do Poisons!" This means
that parents must always be watchful
when household chemicals or drugs
are being used. Many accidents
happen when adults using a product
are distracted for a moment by the
TV, the phone or the doorbell. Adults
must make sure that household
chemicals and drugs are stored
securely away from children at all
times.
Some 104 poison control centers
(PCC) in the United States maintain
information for the physician or the
public on how to treat the ingestion of
household products and medicines.
They are familiar with the toxicity of
most substances. Look for your local
PCC number on the inside cover of
the yellow or white pages of the
telephone directory. Paste it onto your
phone, and familiarize yourself with
label emergency instructions. You
may also call the National Poison Hot
Line (dial 911 for help). ~
Women's History Month
During March EPA will be celebrating
Women's History Month with a series
of events and activities to be
announced at each facility. This
30-day period of commemoration has
its roots in International Women's
Day, proclaimed in 1910 by a German
female socialist to recognize the work
of women in the labor movement.
Suzanne Olive, Deputy Director of
the Office of Civil Rights, has noted
that "for 5000 years of recorded time,
history was literally 'his story', not
hers. It was a tale of military and
political exploits." What counted,
sociologists say, was who won and
who lost; who got the land, the power
and the money; who was obliterated
from the record and who was
immortalized in epic poems and
public statuary. "This approach
ignored the role of women in major
movements for social reform, and
rendered largely invisible their paid
and unpaid labor at home as well as
in the marketplace."
When feminists insist on rewriting"
history today, says Cecelia Scott.
National Federal Women's Program
Manager, "it is only to redress the
imbalance and restore women to their
proper place. The importance of their
perspective was validated when the
Senate in 1981 officially proclaimed
National Women's History Week. It
caught the imagination of educators,
historians and political leaders at all
levels of government, and soon was
transformed into an entire month of
reflection and celebration."
Handling the Fractious
The Employee Counseling and
Assistance Program, in conjunction
with Don Sloane of the Caron
Institute, is setting up a course to
teach supervisors and managers how
to use a four-step, constructive
confrontational process to deal with
the problem employee. They will
learn about the various types of
problems—marital, financial,
emotional, etc.,—that can adversely
affect an employee's job performance.
Special emphasis will be placed on
substance abuse—symptoms,
behavioral effects and how the
supervisor can help the employee to
straighten up. This full-day course
will also show supervisors and
managers how to cut their own stress.
The pilot program is scheduled for
Wednesday. April 5. from 8:30 AM-5
PM at the Gangplank, but class size is
limited to 45 supervisors and
managers, so contact Carlton Burns at
382-4420 ASAP. ~
wrists tilted to the outside—it's no
wonder that clericals and now
professionals alike complain
repeatedly about back, neck, shcj
and knee pain, in that order.
Most of this misery is unnecessary;
it's the result of poorly designed office
furniture—desks and tables that are
too low or high, chairs of the wrong
proportions for lumbar support, etc.
An AT&T study showed that a simple
step like switching to adjustable tables
and chairs slashed reported
discomfort and workers'compensation
claims, and raised productivity.
In the computer age, of course, it's
important to adjust computer screen
distance, height and angle (up. down
and sideways) to cut glare. Keyboard
position is equally salient. Due
attention to such matters would
probably minimize the spinal-disc
degeneration sometimes seen among
older clerical workers. ~
Contract Competition
EPA's January 1989 Annual RepotijD
Congress on Competition notes
extraordinary accomplishment: n
Agency awarded 97 percent of
contract dollars available for
competition under the full and open
competitive process. This represents
one of the highest percentages—if not
the highest—in the government, and
makes EPA once again a leader in
awarding these cost-efficient
contracts. David O'Connor. Director of
the Procurement and Contracts
Management Division, and all those
on his staff who contributed to this
signal achievement are to be
congratulated. ~
Desk Stress
Anyone who sits at a desk or terminal
all day long is subject to physical
stress induced by static, as opposed to
dynamic, muscular strain. Static
effort, in which a muscle group
contracts for long periods in a fixed
position, obstructs blood flow,
inducing fatigue in oxvgen-starved
tissues. Perched on the edge of their
seats, abdomens sagging, necks
cantilevered forward, shoulders raised
like the hunchback of Notre Dame.
The EPA Times is published monthly for
EPA employees. Readers are encouraged to
submit news of themselves or fellow
employees, letters of opinion, questions,
comments, and suggestions to the Editor, The
EPA Times. Office of Public Affairs (A-107).
Telephone. 475-6643. Items selected for
publication may be edited to accommodate
space available.
Editor: Don Bronkema

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Gender Harassment: No Progress
Rider harassment is still a pervasive
^lem for federal employees,
ording to a survey by the Merit
Systems Protection Board (MSPB).
Analyzing 8,523 replies to a
questionnaire sent to 13.000 feds in
most of the leading agencies, the
MSPB found that 42 percent of the
women and 14 percent of the men
had experienced "deliberate or
repeated unsolicited verbal comments,
gestures or physical contact of an
unwelcome sexual nature."
Those are exactly the same numbers
that showed up in a survey in 1980,
so despite seven years of scandals,
trials and court-awarded
compensation, nothing fundamental
has changed. The Board estimated
that gender harassment cost taxpayers
$267 million in turnover and lost
productivity in a recent 24-month
period.
The Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission said in 1980 that gender
harassment is unlawful if it creates
"an intimidating, hostile or offensive
Eking environment." This finding
subsequently confirmed by the
reme Court's Meritor Savings
k v. Vinson decision of 1986, in
which the court ruled that such
harassment violates Title VII of the
1964 Civil Rights Act if it creates a
hostile or offensive environment for
the victim. The ruling also held that
in certain circumstances employers
can be held liable for the actions of
their underlings.
In the MSPB survey, only five
percent of the male and female
victims said they took formal action
against their abusers. An organization
called Federally Employed Women
suggests a reason why so few
complain: in a recent case, it took the
victim about 10 years and tens of
thousands of dollars to finance her
cause. Observers say that women
often do not pursue formal complaint
channels due to feelings of guilt and
shame, fear of reprisal by their
supervisors and ridicule from their
peers, and the suspicion that they are
unlikely to get justice. When women
read about years of struggle, riddled
K'th emotional as well as financial
fcss, it is not surprising they hesitate
ore embarking on such a course.
On the bright side, EPA continues
to rank third from the bottom among
29 federal agencies in terms of the
number of harassment suits. Charlie
Grizzle. Assistant Administrator,
OARM, says he is not surprised by
this favorable standing. "The
progressive culture of EPA naturally
encourages equal treatment of people
and a sense of fair play, regardless of
race, gender, age, class or other
irrelevant considerations." However,
he insisted, "we must be vigilant and
can never rest until harassment of all
kinds is cut to the zero level. Nothing
else will do." ~
How to Get Rich
Readers of the Times will remember
that when the new pension system
came on-line about two years ago. the
experts were unanimous in advising
employees to take a good hard look at
its various provisions and payoffs.
FERS and CSRS differ in important
respects, but taken together they
represent a package generally superior
to private-sector pensions, because
Uncle Sam makes a bigger
contribution to the employee's
retirement account than most
companies do. Moreover, the Thrift
Plan permits deferral of taxes on a
greater proportion of salaries than is
possible under401-K arrangements.
For example, those who have
chosen FERS can put 10 percent of
pay. up to a maximum of S7627 per
annum, into any of three investment
options. The government matches half
of that figure. None of this money is
taxable until it is withdrawn at
retirement—neither your contribution
nor the government's. Those who quit
the federal system before retirement
can just leave the money in the
account or roll it over into a
tax-deferred IRA. More than half of
the 800,000 FERS people participate
in the Thrift Plan; even those who
invest nothing still get a one-percent
contribution from government. Over
400,000 employees in the CSRS invest
up to five percent of salary.
The Thrift Plan is less than two
years old but it's going like
gangbusters, with a value, as we go to
press, of more than three billion
dollars, and growing by $7 million
every day. The options include a
stock fund(C), a mixed commercial
bond fund(F) and another bond
fund(G) invested solely in federal
securities. Last year the G-fund paid
8.81 percent, the F-fund 3.63 percent
and the C-fund 11.84 percent. What's
more, it's never too late to start on the
road to comfort, convenience and
security in your old age. ~
Pay Reform Experiment
In 1988, OPM invited various agencies
to bid for participation in a
5,000-person project to demonstrate
new ways to rate, pay and reward
supervisors and managers. EPA and
the Air Force have been tentatively
selected as the two guinea-pig
agencies for this vital experiment.
Staffers will receive complete
information about it in the near future.
The current approach—the
Performance Management and
Recognition System (PMRS)—ends on
September 30, 1989. It has been
criticized by some observers on
grounds that supervisors are often
reluctant to grade rigorously and that
merit pay pools have been poorly
funded. Workers who get low ratings
often complain the system is unfair
or permits vindictive bosses to deny
benefits.
The move toward merit pay began
with the Civil Service Reform Act of
1978; its goals were to elevate
individual and organizational
productivity and accountability,
reward and encourage performance,
boost efficiency and economy in a
time of tight budgets, and upgrade
both service to the public and the
ambiguous image of federal
employees. Then, a Comptroller
General's decision in 1981
substantially cut funding levels for the
merit pay program. Congress tried to
correct this inequity with the
introduction of PMRS in 1984.
Early in 1988, the Air Force
proposed an OPM-sponsored project
to test an alternative to PMRS,
featuring fewer rating levels,
simplified performance agreements,
and the possibility of larger bonuses
for significant managerial positions.
The latest experiment will attempt to
validate the Air Force findings. ~

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Gaylord: A Classic Winner
Dr. Clarice Gaylord, the new Deputy
Director for Policy, Programs and
Executive Resources in the Office of
Human Resources Management, is a
modern-day pioneer. As such, she has
often been the first to walk down a
new path, sometimes not knowing
where it will lead, but always with a
definite purpose, and never looking
back. Let's take a look at the first
black woman member of EPA's Senior
Executive Service since 1982.
The oldest daughter of ten children,
Gaylord was born in Los Angeles. Her
mother was a housewife and her
father a longshoreman. She attended
UCLA, earning a B.S. in Zoology in
1965, and later took pre-med courses
with the intention of becoming a
pediatrician. Her father wanted her to
go to med school at home, but she
wanted to come East. The promise of
a car if she stayed, and no support
money if she left, did not phase her.
She came to Howard University, not
knowing a soul in D.C., supported
herself with a job, and earned
Master's and Ph.D. degrees in Zoology
in 1967 and 1971.
Gaylord was then desperate for a
job but, with the Great Freeze of '71.
opportunities in government were
limited. She taught at Howard for a
while, then caught the eye of NIH,
and entered the breast cancer virus
(BCV] program. Then came another
first. NIH wanted her to become a
manager, but she preferred the lab
bench. She persuaded NIH to allow
her to split her time 50-50 on
administration and lab work as Chief
of the BCV program. Thanks to her
administrative expertise and scientific
background, Gaylord was recruited by
Bernie Goldstein in 1984 to run the
research grants program in ORD,
especially the peer review model.
From the beginning, Gaylord has
been instrumental in advancing
human resource issues, especially the
potential of minorities and women. At
NIH she was a member of the EEO
Advisory Committee, spending two
years as Vice-Chair. She received a
special achievement award for starting
a sensitivity awareness program for
senior managers in the area of
minority and women's hiring and
promotion. She also chaired the
Employees Advisory Committee. At
EPA, Gaylord is an active member of
the GLO Advisory Committee. Blacks
In Government, Women in Science
and Engineering and the Federal
Women's Program. She currently
heads the Agency-wide Workgroup for
Increasing Women, Minorities, and
Handicapped in Science and
Technology.
Gaylord also serves on the Advisory
Board of North Carolina Central
University, sits on peer review panels
for the National Science Foundation,
and acts as a judge at science fairs.
She has particularly enjoyed her
tenure at ORD because of "the
authority and autonomy to run my
own model grants operation, and the
opportunity to create and push" the
Minority Summer Intern Program.
Gaylord lives in Oxon Hill, Md.. is
married and is the mother of two
teenagers, a son and daughter. ~
Home Relocation Assistance
Traditionally, staffers moved by the
government must sell their homes and
then claim reimbursement for their
expenses, such as agents' fees, moving
bills and some settlement costs. But
EPA has now contracted with
Travelers' Relocation Co. to guarantee
the sale of every eligible property for
authorized employees. This Home
Relocation Assistance Program
(HOMRAP) will end the aggravation
of delayed sales. However, price paid
will depend upon appraised market
value, so profits are not ensured.
After an employee has been
authorized to participate, he or she is
called by the contractor and provided
a list of appraisers. The employee
selects two. If the results fall within
five percent of each other, the
contractor averages the two and Utf
becomes the offer made to the fl
employee. If the employee accepSB^
or she receives a check for 95 percent
of equity within five days and the
remainder within five days of vacating
the property. The contractor also
offers his help in other aspects of
home marketing, home finding,
renting, buying and mortgage
counseling.
HOMRAP is not, however, an
entitlement. Provided that access does
not unfairly discriminate, the program
is offered strictly at management's
discretion. Budgetary constraints, in
particular, would be a legitimate basis
for curtailing or cancelling the
program or denying benefits to a given
employee. It is estimated that perhaps
60 families may benefit during the
first year of operations.
Stacy Blackman will coordinate all
phases of the program agency-wide;
questions or requests for assistance
should be addressed to him at MD-36,
US EPA, Research Triangle Park. N.C.,
27711 (FTS 629-0220 or 919-541-0^0;
Fax 629-0192; E-Mail EPA 3940)^^fc
Dump for Dollars
The country has a serious garbage
problem—it is running out of places
to dispose of it safely. On February 3,
EPA issued a national strategy
announcing a revitalized role for the
Agency in helping states and localities
do their job better, plus a national
goal of a 25 percent boost in source
reduction and recycling by 1992.
Since we are presently recycling only
about 10 percent of our garbage, this
is an ambitious goal, but one we
believe is achievable. It will take a
major effort by all levels of
government and industry and by
individuals. YOU CAN HELP by
participating in recycling at home and
at EPA. Your office paper can be
recycled with almost no effort on your
part. And you can bring your bottles
to the "recycloos" (recycling igloos) in
the West Tower parking lot on the
"M" Street side. Proceeds will be
donated to the Agency day-care *
center. For further information
contact: Truett DeGeare at 382-4*
on EPA's national strategy and Thad
Juszczak at 382-4510 on recycling at
EPA. ~

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