Posted on August 13, 2026 by AdminUN

DOREEN TAKES ON ENTIRE TRUMP FAMILY

I have known her for decades and while I have not always agreed with her decisions, there is no doubt in my mind that she will stand up to and fight anyone who threatens the members of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU). Absolutely anyone! Last week she did it by calling out the entire Trump family not only on behalf of her members, but also everyone else in the country who  believes it was illegal for Trump to direct his appointees at the Treasury Department and IRS to give his entire clan immunity from income tax laws. She filed suit in federal court to challenge the legality of the President’s scam. Doreen is … Doreen Greenwald, the President of NTEU. She spent most of her career before becoming the union leader at IRS chasing down business owners who tried to evade their tax obligations. Given Trump’s habit of using the government to seek revenge against anyone who offends him, she deserves a bundle of credit.  Continue reading →

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Posted on August 11, 2026 by AdminUN

BE VERY CAREFUL WITH THOSE ARBITRATION ISSUE STATEMENTS

If you knew there was a child predator wandering the neighborhood you would be extra careful about letting your child leave the house.  Given that Trump has installed two union predators on the FLRA, we need to exercise the same care when we let a grievance leave our control.  FLRA showed that in a new case when it denied a part of a remedy an arbitrator awarded, blaming the union for not having properly written the issue statement. Continue reading →

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Posted on August 5, 2026 by AdminUN

OPM ADDRESSES WHAT IS AND ISN’T STILL NEGOTIABLE ON PERFORMANCE APPRAISALS

Now that we are moving to a forced distribution rating environment which will require each manager to brand some employees as the worst in the group even if they are performing successfully, OPM has put out its view of what is and isn’t negotiable.  The folks at Federal Managers Daily Report published a helpful piece on the OPM guidance which you can read by clicking here, but remember this is management’s opinion, not labor’s.  I will try to toss out some ideas of what union’s should demand to bargain over in the next few postings.  But in the meantime, think about demanding a deep data analysis of how these ratings are distributed.  If they are anything like how disciplinary actions are taken, minorities will get hit hard.  Similarly, women will likely get placed in the lower tiers more often than men.  This system is ready made for disparate treatment claims.  For example, what happens when a White male and a female Hispanic employee both get an overall Acceptable ratings, but she gets placed in a lower tier? Or even the other way around? There are no criteria for making the distinctions objective, leaving managers to defend their undocumented opinions in a discrimination hearing. The costs of the EEO investigations alone are going to make this a very expensive change–probably even more than the White House disco is costing America.

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Posted on August 2, 2026 by AdminUN

WANT A FED JOB? GET A TRUMP TATTOO

I’m kidding—or am I?  An AI start-up got headlines recently for announcing that the process for getting a job with it began with getting a tattoo of the company logo. What a great idea, right?  That would separate the applicants merely interested in a job anywhere from those willing to shed blood for the company, to declare their forever loyalty to the CEO’s vision, and, in the process, get the company some free advertising every time the interviewee raised an arm at a bar, ballgame, or gym. If our great Orange Oracle spotted the article, the odds are he has OPM working on it already. Perhaps they will offer applicants options for which Trump tattoo they want, e.g., the happy face one or the scowling face. Size and placement would also be optional–so long as it was publicly visible, e.g., on  the neck, face, back of the hand, etc. (After all, if Christian feds can walk around with a forehead smug on Ash Wednesday, why not a pix of the Prez for eternity?) It sure would beat the loyalty oath our leader wants feds to take that can be simply recited without any sincerity. The AI start-up’s tattooing plan was quickly dealt a death blow, probably by some woke Antifa communists immigrant lovers, who were uncomfortable with the idea of branding employees. But public opinion matters little at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  If it did, the White House might never have been ripped apart to make way for a dance hall.  Someone should start checking whether tattooing is substantively negotiable or will unions be limited to impact and implementation bargaining?

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Posted on July 29, 2026 by AdminUN

WHAT IS “THE HEIST?”

It is a newly released documentary about you.  More specifically, it recounts the 2025 chaos the Trump/DOGE madness created in government.  It details what to the 249-year- old American civil service established on the concept of political neutrality when these two boneheads fired 55,000 people, shutting entire agencies in the process.  It is something you should watch and circulate, especially to all those folks who think the DOGE purge made government more efficient or responsive. You can access it by clicking here.

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Posted on July 29, 2026 by AdminUN

NTEU GETS HUGE WIN FOR HHS PROBATIONERS

Early in his 2025 revenge tour against the federal civil service, Trump demanded that agencies purge as many probationers as they could.  Normally, he and any other President has the power to do that—if they do it according to the rules. But as our dear leader has shown repeatedly throughout his life, he feels rules are for other people. So, when the president’s toadies carried out his orders without any protest, it resulted in about 3,200 HHS employees losing their jobs instantly.  But rules are rules and if any union is good at enforcing them it is NTEU.  It not only alleged that the mass terminations allegedly for performance was an illegal attempt to avoid the due process RIF procedures of the contract and regulations, but also claimed implementing the terminations without bargaining violated federal law. And damned if it did not win at arbitration creating the potential for the arbitrator to order the retroactive reinstatement of the 3,200 along with any back pay, interest, and benefits they missed out on.  Continue reading →

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Posted on July 23, 2026 by AdminUN

GRIEVANCE DRAFTING TIPS 1, 2 & 3

Most contracts merely require the union to put the following in the grievance: 1- Article and section violated, 2- Description of the grieved event, and 3- Remedy desired.   As clear as that or similar language appears, there are some drafting tips that will boost your chances of winning. Continue reading →

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Posted on July 23, 2026 by AdminUN

GRIEVANCE DRAFTING TIPS 4, 5, & 6

Before we turn to three other parts of a grievance where you can boost its winning potential and impact, remember this.  If you were unable to draft the grievance broadly enough during the grievance stage, often arbitrators will allow the parties to deviate from the exact wording of the grievance and the management responses when crafting the formal issues statement for him.  If you have that opportunity, here is an example of how a promotion-related grievance might be written for the arbitrator, “Did the agency violate Article X, Section Y of the parties’ agreement or any law, rule or regulation when it denied the following individuals promotion.” So, now let’s turn away from the grievance issue to look at your other opportunities. Continue reading →

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Posted on July 14, 2026 by AdminUN

NFFE WINS BREAKTHROUGH TELEWORK ARBITRATION AWARD

NFFE’s General Counsel’s shop has done all of us a favor with its recent arbitration victory. Like most unions since Trump’s anti-common sense decision to stamp out telework, it has had to file grievances and move them to arbitration to protect its members. In its newest case, it protested the Forest Service’s decision to unilaterally wipe it out despite some very clear contract language. More importantly, it asked for the most aggressive remedy I have seen so far in these telework decisions. Continue reading →

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Posted on July 14, 2026 by AdminUN

ARE THE DOUGLAS FACTORS GONE?

Not yet, but Trump’s appointees are doing their best to punish federal employees just for being part of the government that came after him and the January 6th terrorists.  Its latest revenge initiative, but hardly its last, is to take away the Douglas Factors which for decades have protected employees from arbitrary disciplinary penalties.  This is a big deal.  A VERY BIG DEAL. It would permit a manager to fire a 30-year employee for showing up 15 minutes late one day in his entire  career. There would be no consideration of mitigating factors, how similarly situated employees were disciplined or even the harm and cost to the government of dismissing a fed with decades of experience and training for a trivial infraction. (Oh, that we could fire Trump or his drones when they made a single mistake.  Bye, bye RFK Jr. for the measles disaster; so long Hegseth for pushing the war with Iran; and hasta la vista Attorney General Blanche for the illegal and unethical deal givng the Trump family immunity from federal income taxes forever. But I digress.) Continue reading →

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