In a rare and vital moment of action, the Government Accountability Office has made a decision about plastic forks, knives and spoons.
Following a dispute between the Department of Commerce and the National Weather Service Employees Organization, GAO decided on December 23 that federal workers cannot supply their employees with plastic cutlery and that such utensils should hereby be “considered personal expenses.”
According to the government agency, plastic forks and knives do not offer “benefit to the employee” sufficient enough to justify their expense.
Back in 2009 during the outbreak of the H1N1 virus, the Department of Commerce permitted National Weather Service offices to supply employees with “disposable cups, plates an[d] utensils” in addition to hand sanitizers, disinfectants, tissues and paper towels.
However, when the Commerce department said in 2013 that the offices could no longer offer employees such plastic benefits, the National Weather Service Employees Organization challenged the decision.
The issue went into arbitration, where the employees initially won, but Commerce later appealed to the Federal Labor Relations Authority and also asked GAO to give its input. After GAO released its final decision, NWS employees alleged that they did not know of the office’s involvement.
“Here, the disposable cups, plates, and cutlery are primarily for the convenience of agency employees and thus constitute a personal expense,” wrote GAO in the decision.
Unsurprisingly, NWS employees are not happy.
“Its really a bizarre thing,” meteorologist Dan Sobien, who also heads the NWS Employees Organization, told the Washington Post. “There’s no way this could cost them more than five or ten thousand dollars.”
“In most places you can’t run out to Burger King and grab a burger to bring back to work,” Sobien explained. “Many eat at their work station while monitoring weather.”
Still, there may be hope for munching federal workers. The Federal Labor Relations Authority has yet to release its own decision on the matter.
Yet, if FLRA sides with GAO, what the fork are NWS employees going to do?
H/T Washington Post
