Christine Griffin to OPM
President Obama plans to nominate the current acting vice chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Christine Griffin, to be the deputy director of the Office of Personnel Management. This should be an interesting move both in terms of disability policy and the culture at OPM. Griffin is an outspoken advocate of getting more disabled workers into the federal government, and extremely impatient with any hedging on that goal. I actually started writing about the issue when Griffin emailed me directly after I wrote a story about a hearing on diversity and asked me why I wasn't looking into disability. She's also a labor law expert, which could come in handy if President Obama reinstates the labor-management partnership councils or revitalizes efforts to increase labor law training. I'm still waiting on more official reactions on Griffin's coming appointment, but my personal sense of her is that she's aggressive, though never unpleasant, committed, and deeply knowledgeable. Plus, no complaints from this blogger about having a deputy director who helped with the upgrades to Fenway Park to make it more friendly for disabled Red Sox fans.
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The OPM needs Christine Griffin to shore up its efforts to hire individuals with disabilities in the Federal government. Ms. Griffin's tenure at the EEOC has seen the agency's employment of people with disabilities shoot to the top of all Federal agencies employment of people with disabilities at 2.65% in FY 2007. OPM has hired 5.20% more Federal employees in the ten-years period of time up to FY 2007, but it has hired 14.42% less people with disabilities in the same period of time. This is a 20 percent off-the-norm history that OPM owns where it comes to hiring people with disabilities. It makes economic sense for the Federal government to hire people with disabilities off the public welfare rolls and turn them into tax-paying American citizens who can be gainfully employed with the Federal government. This is a no-brainer appointment by President Obama, especially at an agency such as OPM who needs to think outside its "box".
I congratulate Ms. Griffin on this very important appointment. I am positive she can bring key changes to OPM not only for the hiring of people with disabilities- but also to show that people with disabilities can lead Federal agencies in adopting creative solutions to make America what it is all about-a land of Americans with diversity.
If Fenway Park can be an all-American baseball park, then this blogger has no complaints either about this all-American new deputy director!
Paul Singleton Posted Monday, April 20, 2009 9:11 AM