From a race relations outlook, government has advanced beyond the segregated offices of the Woodrow Wilson Presidency and the overt bigotry practiced during the Jim Crow era. In 2009, America inaugurated its first African-American President, Barack Obama, to head the executive branch of government and to serve as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. Despite this milestone in America's racial history, the majority of highly qualified and educated African-Americans await opportunities to "fairly" compete for, obtain, and excel in federal government jobs.
Many blacks hired by the federal government, our nation's largest employer, suffer reprisal, including termination after challenging workplace civil rights violations. The U.S. Department of Labor reported that black unemployment surged to 16.7% in August 2011, its highest level since 1984. In the same mont h,white unemployment was 8%, an improvement from the 8.8% level of a year earlier.
Most blacks, who have managed to hold on to their federal positions, remain wedged in low-level non-supervisory jobs. According to the Office of Personnel Management's FY 2010 Federal Employment Opportunity Recruitment Plan, only 6.7% of blacks served at senior pay levels. By contrast, 81.7% of whites served at senior pay levels.
A Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) report issued in 2009 entitled Fair and Equitable Treatment Progress Made and Challenges Remaining disclosed that the median salary of black and white employees has widened significantly over the last decades. According to MSPB, "minorities have lower pay grades even after controlling for education, experience another advancement related factors" (p.60).
Despite the passage of the Notification and Federal Employee Antidiscrimination and Retaliation (NOFEAR) Act of 2002, a federal law that seeks to dis courage federal managers and supervisors from engaging in unlawful discrimination and retaliation, discrimination persists. The statistics disclose it. The studies expose it. The Obama administration, which dodges the topic of managerial accountability and "institutional racism" within in its own ranks, knows it. According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's (EEOC) FY2010 Annual Report on the Federal Workforce, black employees remain below the average government pay grade. During fiscal 2010, 17,583 federal employees and job applicants filed discrimination complaints, a 3.8% increase from the previous year. Most glaring was the fact that Black/African-American led the "race" basis for employment complaints filed.
Civil rights groups are seeking more transparency with regard to how effectively agency officials resolve employment claims. To spur federal managerial accountability, initiatives are underway to expose public officials who fail to resolve ag ency complaint activity expeditiously, at the lowest level of the administrative level and in the best interest of the taxpayer. One such initiative is the creation of a Responsible Management Officials (RMO) page. The RMO page lists persons "named" in employment discrimination court proceedings, published articles, or administrative case proceedings. It is key to note that not all management officials cited on the RMO page have been proven guilty of alleged acts of discrimination or reprisal. However, complaints referenced had withstood agency attempts to quash them at the administrative level or in court, and were considered to have merit.
The Coalition For Change, Inc. (C4C) -- C4C is a volunteer non-profit organization comprised of former and present employees (African-Americans) who have been injured or ill-treated due to workplace discrimination and/or reprisal. C4C members expect that their advocacy, activism and accountability initiatives, such as the RMO page, will curb the escalating race discrimination and retaliation activity occurring within the federal sector. The "RMO page" can be accessed at http://coalition4change.org/RMO.htm.