Monthly Archives: April 2012

HOW SENIORITY IMMUNIZES MANAGEMENT The various employment civil rights acts work by forcing managers to make a choice when they select employees for promotion, awards, etc.  Ironically, making decisions based on seniority gives management near total immunity. Here is how.

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TEST YOURSELF #2-  Strategic Negotiability Decisions Assume that after a week of bargaining over a management-proposed mid-term change, management tells you that one of your four remaining unagreed proposals is non-negotiable?  This is an important proposal to you and you … Continue reading

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MAKING NEW PROPOSALS AFTER BARGAINING BEGINS There is a little-known court case that authorizes union negotiators to make totally new proposals in the middle of negotiations.

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SECRET SERVICE’S SILLY SEX STORY Brace yourself, America—and especially federal employees. The culture war is about to flare to near-nuclear levels over the recent Secret Service Agents’ interaction with a salacious slice of Columbia’s service sector. First there will be … Continue reading

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TEST YOURSELF- A New Kind of Posting Starting today we plan on posting fact patterns that will give you a chance to challenge your knowledge of labor/employment laws, regulations and strategy. Each will deal with a situation union representatives are … Continue reading

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TEST YOURSELF #1- The Late Bargaining Demand How do you respond when an LR specialist rejects your request to bargain over a management-proposed space change because your demand was a day or two late under the contract? Here are a … Continue reading

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MSPB’S 13TH DOUGLAS FACTOR MSPB and virtually every arbitrator use the 12 so-called Douglas factors to decide whether to mitigate an adverse action penalty.  (See a complete list of the Douglas factors at the end of this posting.) It is … Continue reading

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THANKS FOR THE INTEREST Just thought we would share some in-house news we are excited about. FEDSMILL.com has been operating for a little over six months now and thanks to you we have a mailing list of subscribers and others … Continue reading

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CONGRATULATIONS AFGE AND NFFE AFGE just filed its annual LM report revealing that the number of dues paying members rose by almost 9,000 over last year’s report for a total of 289,023 dues paying members.  

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DUBESTER CRITICIZES COVERED-BY CONCEPT FLRA Member DuBester launched his own five-prong attack on the infamous two-prong covered-by concept that has generated so much chaos since its creation.  Writing a dissenting opinion in AFGE, SSA General Committee, 66 FLRA No. 108, … Continue reading

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