Posted on July 24, 2024 by AdminUN

30-YEAR-OLD BACK PAY CASE

Occasionally, an agency asserts that it cannot legally grant back pay for claims more than six years old due to appropriation laws.  Given that it can take more than six years to resolve certain cases, the employees with claims going back more than six years lose money if the agency argument is accepted.  In fact, if they retired more than six years ago, they would lose all their back pay entitlement no matter if they had an otherwise legitimate right to ten, twenty, or thirty years of retroactive compensation. So, we have made it a point to let Fedsmill.com readers know that there is a bundle of cases out there where federal employees have received back pay retroactive for decades.  Our post entitled, “How Far Back Can A Back Pay Claim Go?” lists a dozen examples and there is a new one to add.  Check out the FedManager.com story entitled, “30-Year-Old Job Discrimination Lawsuit Settled by USMS.” The U.S. Marshals Service has agreed to compensate employees and former employees for violations of their rights dating back as far as 1994. Apparently, the urban legend about some appropriation laws barring payments more than six years retroactive did not bother the Marshals Service, which is part of the Dep’t. of Justice. Continue reading →

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Posted on July 24, 2024 by AdminUN

INADEQUATE AGENCY NOTICE GIVES UNION A BIG BARGAINING BONUS (PT. 2)

NEGOTIATOR ALERT!     What does it mean for the union when management gives it advance notice of a proposed change, but the notice omits some of the details?  It means a bargaining power bonus for the union. Continue reading →

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Posted on July 15, 2024 by AdminUN

BARGAINING BY THE NUMBERS TRAINING PROGRAM

Getting ready to negotiate a term contract? Or is it mid-term bargaining that lies ahead for you? With decades of experience with both as well as from both sides of the bargaining table, we have designed a training program that focuses on over 125 very concrete bargaining precedents, tactics, and tips. If you find yourself being whipped around the room during negotiations or simply not doing as well as you thought you would, it most likely will be because of one or more of these 125 are being used against you. Programs that emphasize a more subjective or high strategy approach to learning how to negotiate are not bad; but we have found those negotiators who know the hard tangible parts of negotiations do better.  If you are interested, let us know. Continue reading →

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Posted on July 12, 2024 by AdminUN

THE  INTELLECTUAL DISHONESTY OF “COVERED-BY” ADVOCATES

There is an ALJ case lingering in the FLRA decision pipeline that will once again put the “covered-by” (CB) defense up for review. (See DoD and NEA) Having watched the CB defense come into being and judicially mutate into nothing short of a near-total extermination of mid-term collective bargaining, my opinion has been that it is built atop unsupportable assertions. This becomes obvious when they are isolated and examined individually. To do so, I have focused on the reasoning of the primary, and most accomplished, CB activist, Judge Harry T. Edwards, of the D.C. Court of Appeals. Like me he spent his formative years learning about language, reasoning, sentence structure, fallacies, and syntax in a little place called Uniondale.  True story, but for another time. Hopefully, this analysis will enable unions to sharpen an attack on the concept. Continue reading →

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Posted on July 9, 2024 by AdminUN

CAN THE AFGE BORDER PATROL COUNCIL SAVE DHS  BARGAINING RIGHTS?

Way back in 2016 AFGE’s Border Patrol Council exercised the autonomy it has under the AFGE Constitution to back a different candidate for America’s President than AFGE and the AFL-CIO supported.  It turned out that it backed the winner and in return got a bundle of benefits for Border Patrol employees and their union reps that the White House tormented every other federal union. You can condemn that as we have, but that is the “American way.”  Another election is looming and it well known around LR circles that if it goes a certain way the White House will be controlled by people who want to crush unions into a fine dust. So, you have to wonder what the AFGE Border Council can accomplish if it once again breaks from AFGE’s election strategy and winds up backing a winner. Here is how we see it.  Continue reading →

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Posted on July 9, 2024 by AdminUN

DOES THIS FED GET A FULL-TIME TELEWORK FOR PTSD?

The employee was a GS-11 Claims Specialist with SSA working in an office alongside 15 other GS-11 Claims Specialists and two GS-12’s. He was also a combat vet diagnosed with PTSD in 2012. While he worked at home during the COVID office closures, he encountered the following symptoms upon return: feeling overly stressed and worried; marked weight loss; hair lose; forgetfulness; irritability; anxiety; and due to a hostile encounter with a co-worker he testified “I fear for my safely. I have nightmares that he is chasing me around the office with a gun. I’m not sleeping.”  Moreover, the record showed that other employees in the office with physical disabilities were allowed full-time telework because they were unable to drive—a physical disability versus his mental one. When his request to work from home was denied, he  filed an EEO complaint not just alleging improper denial of a reasonable accommodation, but also that he was treated disparately under the Rehabilitation Act. Continue reading →

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Posted on July 2, 2024 by AdminUN

BARGAINING WITH JERKS – #1 (Information Access)

There are a lot of different types of negotiators on the management side of the table and one of them deserves to be labeled The Jerk. This is the person who has come to bargaining intent on oppressing the union rather than working with it, is a game player rather than problem solver, and goads the union into making technical errors that undermine or void its right to bargain.  So, we thought we would post occasional stories about how to deal with the various tactics of the table Jerk. Here is our first installment. Feel free to post your own suggestions at the end of the article.  Continue reading →

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Posted on July 2, 2024 by AdminUN

WANT AN EXECUTIVE BOARD OF PUPPETS?

Wine them, dine them and fly them, but never ever tell them about (or let them decide) anything important. As our media headlines carry more and more stories about dictators and dictator wannabees, it is hard not to notice the parallels between how they stay in power and how non-profit CEO’s perennially dominate their own kingdoms. (Full disclosure here. I believe far too many CEO’s, especially in the non-profit world, have not just excessive power over their members, but also exercise it to the detriment of their organizations.)  So, maybe it will help to shine a light on how they do it in case anyone out there wants to change that in their own organizations. Continue reading →

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Posted on June 25, 2024 by AdminUN

GRIEVANCE STRATEGY ISSUES – Part 2

Now let’s turn to the common labor agreement requirement that the grievance include “the article(s) and section(s) violated.” Again, this sounds simple and very often is, but there are important exceptions.  Continue reading →

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Posted on June 25, 2024 by AdminUN

PREGNANCY RIGHTS VERSUS DISABILITY

A management law firm just posted a piece entitled, “Doesn’t the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act just require employers to treat pregnant employees just like they treat employees with disabilities?” Although it is written for managers, union reps will find it is thought provoking in terms of how to protect pregnant members.  We recommend you read it and remind you that pregnant employees can also at times be disabled employees depending on the facts.

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