Posted on February 16, 2026 by AdminUN

NTEU’S BOARD VOTES FOR LESS MEMBER DEMOCRACY

It was bound to happen that leaders would start to copy Trump’s control tricks, but it is sad to see a union leader doing it to her members.  One of the most fundamental elements of democracy within a union is the right of a member to file charges against the union president for violating law, regulation, or union policy. Given that union president’s are pre-disposed to reject any claims they did wrong –as we all are, democracy requires that the member have the right to appeal the president’s dismissal of charges to the executive board and on to the convention. If there is no right of appeal, by definition you have an autocratic president—or to be more blunt, you have a Mini-Trump. NTEU’s national executive board just voted to make its president’s dismissal of charges unappealable to the board or the convention. Here is the very crafty way they did it. Continue reading →

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Posted on February 12, 2026 by AdminUN

AFGE LED THE WAY ON TELEWORK TERMINATION REMEDIES

Last week NTEU announced it had just won several arbitrations overturning the nutty White House “vengeance-against-feds” decision to unilaterally terminate telework programs throughout government. Great legal work. In assume other unions are having similar success and that is wonderful. But the real measure of whether unions are successful with these grievances will be whether they get tangible remedies that will make members cherish them even more.  My all-time favorite telework remedy was won by AFGE in a case entitled, HUD and AFGE, Local 3856,  66 FLRA No. 23 (2011).  FLRA upheld the union’s grievance wherein “the Arbitrator directed the Agency to compensate teleworkers for additional mileage travel expenses agreements (the travel-expenses remedy) that they incurred as a result of not being able to telework under the terms of their prior agreements.” KA-CHING, KA-CHING.  But there are also some other great remedies to be had.  For example,…   Continue reading →

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Posted on February 12, 2026 by AdminUN

WHERE ADA MEETS FMLA

The Deakins law firm just posted a useful advice memo written for managers.  But, it is just as useful for union reps facing a situation where an employee needs time off (or more time off) due to a medical or psychological condition.  It is entitled, “ADA Meets FMLA: Where They Overlap and Where They Diverge.”  We recommend you forward it to whoever in your local deals with disability and FMLA claims. Better yet, pass it along to members to alert them to the possibilities when these crises arise in their families.

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Posted on February 10, 2026 by AdminUN

DEFECTIVE SICK LEAVE RESTRICTION OVERTURNED BY FLRA

A Department of Army supervisor ordered an employee to provide medical justification for any sick leave despite the fact that the labor agreement said the agency had to have “legitimate reasons” to do so and warn the employee in advance of imposing the restriction.   When the union grieved and took the case to arbitration, the arbitrator held the agency had no apparent legitimate reason nor had it counselled the employee in advanced  of the restriction.  Given the ”we hate all union employees” mentality of the White House and its appointees we expected FLRA to find some reason to overturn the arbitrator. But, lo and behold, it did not and its reasoning is worth remembering for when a similar situation arises in your unit.  Continue reading →

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Posted on February 5, 2026 by AdminUN

FSIP REJECTS AGENCY’S CWS  “ADVERSE IMPACT” CLAIM

While there are cob webs all over the FLRA headquarters thanks to our President’s decision to slow down the administration of justice, some decisions do manage to break free of the morass. A recent one came from the Impasses Panel when an agency tried to reduce the number of employees who would be allowed to continue on a Compressed Work Schedule. The agency claimed that if it could not reduce the number it would create “an adverse impact,” which is the statutory term for the sky is falling, babies are dying, and zombies will be everywhere. Fortunately, the law and regulation require that an agency carries the burden of proving that.  When the Bureau of Prisons tried to do that, the Panel outlined why it failed-giving unions a little more clarity on where to punch holes in an agency’s claim.  Below is the core of the Panel’s reasoning. Continue reading →

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Posted on February 5, 2026 by AdminUN

MILITARY LEAVE DIFFERENTIAL PAY USERRA VICTORY

People get called up for active military service for a variety of reasons ranging from being assigned to the front lines of a battle to providing direct or indirect support for soldiers in battle to attending a school required for a pending promotion. One of the benefits of those activated is that law requires that their military pay be supplemented by their agency to equal what they were being paid in their federal civilian position. That is called differential pay. See 5 U.S.C. § 5538(a) When a VA civilian employee was selected for promotion to an officer position, he was required to attend Officer Candidate School. However, when he asked the VA to provide him differential pay, it refused claiming the type of service he would perform while activated did not qualify for differential pay. The employee appealed to MSPB because even though he was not heading into a war zone or combat, Trump’s White House had proclaimed the country was under a “national emergency” at the time.   Here is the Board’s reasoning. (Given all the national emergencies Trump declares from week to week, union’s would be wise to  circulate this information among members to make sure they get what they deserve.) Continue reading →

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Posted on January 29, 2026 by AdminUN

ZIP IT! – WHEN MANAGERS VIOLATE YOUR PRIVACY       

This is not the first time we have written about managers who either can’t keep their mouth shut or their documents clean.  The newest example is the Chief of Dental Services who just cost a VA hospital over $8,500 by ignoring an employee’s right to medical privacy. Continue reading →

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Posted on January 29, 2026 by AdminUN

TEST YOURSELF: IS THERE A VIOLATION HERE?

Read over the facts below and identify what, if anything, the union can do to help. The answer is provided below the facts.

FACTS: Assume that an employee’s administrative workweek starts in the wee hours of Sunday morning and goes through to midnight the following Saturday. Let’s call her Keisha Krull. During the last year, she has always had a tour of duty running from Tuesday through Saturday starting at 8 a.m. and ending at 4: 30 p.m. Those were her regularly scheduled 40 hours. However, due to extremely tight budgets, the agency’s regional manager has decided to adjust the schedules of the people in Keisha’s work unit so as to avoid the need to pay any overtime. He moved staff from the slow periods of the week to the busier periods. Keisha’s new tour was Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.  Her hours on Monday were from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. but the rest of the week she was to work from 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.

LR informed you, the union leader of the change, just three workdays before the beginning of the new administrative work week that it was making the change and that it considered it to be “covered-by” the current agreement’s provision stating, “The Agency will notify the union no less than 48 hours before it wishes to implement a shift change and take any union objections into account.” Consequently, the agency saw no need to negotiate over the impact.

QUESTION: What, if any, violations have been committed here and what is the appropriate remedy. Continue reading →

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Posted on January 19, 2026 by AdminUN

TRUMP’S JEW LISTS

And you thought this could not get any scarier? It appears Trump is a better student of history than we all thought because he just reached back about 90 years to replicate the maneuvers of a similar infamous figure of history. Trump’s EEOC has demanded that the University of Pennsylvania create and turn over membership rosters for the Jewish Studies Program and Jewish and Jewish-affiliated campus organizations, plus personal contact information and addresses of the Jewish members. So, does anyone really doubt that he won’t soon insist that federal agencies provide similar information. Once he has all his Jews lined up in some nice little DOGE data file, will it really be long before he demands similar information on other religions, e.g., particularly those he does not approve of?  (And God help you atheists.) Then the data on which feds are union members, which ones have ever filed an EEO complaint, etc.  The ACLU is trying to stop this at UPenn.  Union leaders would be wise to start listening for any evidence that The Orange One is make similar demands in their agency.

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Posted on January 19, 2026 by AdminUN

SNOW DAYS AND THE FMLA

Thought you might find helpful a new DOL note on how partial-week weather-related closures count toward FMLA leave. While DOL has no regulatory control over the civil service, OPM usually follows its advice.  Sometimes that is good for employees; sometimes it is not so good.

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