You do not often hear about step increase denials, also known as WIGI or ALOC denials, but they are a big deal for an employee and not the easiest things to grieve or challenge. The first step for a union rep lacking experience with these denials probably should be to look over the four following FEDSMILL posts to get a big picture view of what is possible and mistakes to avoid. Continue reading
Terri, a Dep’t. of Interior employee, took an Uber to the airport for her four-day trip. When she filed a voucher asking for the agency to reimburse her $40.00 costs, it refused to pay. It alleged that if she had taken a cab, Uber or similar ride to the airport it would only have cost her $16.74. It based that on a website estimation of what the cost of the trip would have been on average. The employee appealed to the Civilian Board of Contract Appeals (CBCA) which is where feds take travel disputes if they cannot grieve the agency’s denial. The Board slapped Interior down and ordered Terri fully paid. But it is the reasoning it used that is important because we would not be surprised if other agencies are also using website estimations to reject employee travel claims. Continue reading
NFFE just announced it latest organizing victory adding another 174 workers to its Forest Service unit, but the even better news is that NFFE has won 60 straight organizing drives in 2025 and has already added 10 more to that streak. That kind of success is unheard of and an enormous testament to what the national leadership is doing there. It is also further evidence that The King of the golden gilded, bordello-like White House has created a Trump Bump for unions. Congrats NFFE.
Once it endorsed Trump in the 2016 election, he rewarded the Border Patrol Council with the most lavish collective bargaining agreement ever negotiated in the federal sector. (It was particularly sumptuous for the union leadership that was given near-endless amounts of official time. See our 2019 post entitled, “Trump Pay Off Border Patrol Union.”) But things have not gone so well for them since, as seen this week when Trump’s two FLRA appointees overturned a union arbitration victory. Continue reading
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 predisposed 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
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
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.
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
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