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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Posted on January 17, 2026 by AdminUN

DID YOU MISS THESE POSTS?

Whether due to the shutdown, holidays or your “use or lose” leave, you may have missed a few of the more important pieces we have posted since October 1 concerning Civil Rights and Labor Relations.

Civil Rights

Labor Relations

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Posted on January 8, 2026 by AdminUN

OUR PRESIDENT’S RENAMING FRENZY & YOU

If you have not been in the District lately due to some use or lose leave or to treat a year-long migraine, you should know that the President is in the process of a self-loving frenzy renaming lots of the buildings and locations where you work. So, we thought we would look ahead to what is likely to happen next. That should get you ready for when the guys with the gold lettering show up unannounced at your federal worksite to change the name of your work site.  Happy New Year!  Continue reading →

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Posted on January 8, 2026 by AdminUN

DOES FMLA COVER TRAVEL TIME?

Those of us actually engaged in the practice of employee rights accepted long ago that an employee’s time traveling to and from a location where s/he provides covered FMLA assistance is covered as FMLA leave.  President Trump’s staff, however, thought we all needed to hear something from our dear leader’s own people to allow this. Maybe all that dust and flying asbestos from ripping down the east wing confused them enough to think we were just as confused as those White House intellects. In any event, they just issued an opinion letter on the issue. Jeff Nowak, who may be America’s leading thinker about FMLA just posted a piece on his blog addressing the issue.  Even though he writes for employers, we find his advice for union reps as well. So, we suggest you click over to his latest “FMLA Insight” post for some helpful information.

If you know of some employees who have been denied FMLA leave for their travels, now is as good a time as any to contact them and file a grievance.  Given that an agency could be liable for tens of thousands of dollars in attorney fees if it forces the union to arbitrate for even an hour of retroactive FMLA leave, these dispute should settle easily.

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