Where is Mike Now? - FDC Philidelphia Last Week, then Home for the Weekend

I spent last week in Staff Search Policy negotiations with the Agency at FDC Philadelphia.  The negotiations went about as well as they have in the past year (read that as very little progress).

For those who don't know already (we talked about it as a group more than once during the Caucus), the Agency is proposing a new Staff Search Policy that include the random pat-search, random visual search of belongings (e.g. backpacks, dufflebags, etc.), and random search of vehicles of BOP employees.  It also includes random ion spectrometry screening (drug sniffer) of staff and their belongings.

We (the Union) are up to proposal 35 out of 64 total Union proposals over the Agency's draft policy. We've been negotiating this policy for a year now; it is a literal minefield of problems for both sides.  The Union's position is that the Agency's draft policy, as written, violates an employee's rights under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

I'll give updates from time to time as to how this treacherous policy is going.