Monthly Archives: August 2012

HOW ORGANIZED LABOR CHANGED AMERICA Labor Day weekend is upon us and most people have little idea why America has set aside a day to remember labor–or even what unions contributed.  There are many answers to that question, but we … Continue reading

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AFGE CONSOLIDATES DOD POLICE An old DOD management tactic is to not only demand lots of small units on their military bases, but also to keep them isolated from one another.  It keeps them weak. AFGE just overcame serious DOD … Continue reading

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TAX-RELATED OVERPAYMENTS MAY BE WAIVED Here is a new one that surprises even us. A federal agency, ironically the IRS, failed to withhold from the biweekly salary checks of its employees in Florence, KY the full income tax amount they … Continue reading

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TEST YOURSELF #4- Loss of Status Assume that a supervisor gets upset with an employee, who has long had special status in the work group, and takes all that away from her.  Up until this run-in with the supervisor, this … Continue reading

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TURNING TABLES OF PENALTIES ON MANAGEMENT Not long ago MSPB overturned an adverse action because of a mistake management made using its own table of penalties to set the penalty.  The mistake was not an obvious one.  We want to … Continue reading

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FLRA CUFFS IG INVESTIGATORS—AND SLAMS CBP LR’S INCOMPETENCE For far too long IG Investigators have been able to ignore virtually every union negotiated protection against unfair, intimidating, underhanded investigatory interviews of employees. But FLRA just changed that in with NTEU … Continue reading

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WONDERFUL NFFE WEB SITES We like to recognize the really good local union web sites. Our hope is that highlighting the really good ones will give us all a little extra energy to improve what we have. Union web sites … Continue reading

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EEO INVESTIGATIONS ARE FORMAL DISCUSSIONS Unions reps have a right to be invited to an EEO investigator’s interview of unit employees. FLRA considers these interviews, even if done one person at a time, to be formal discussions solong as the … Continue reading

Posted in EEO/Discrimination, Formal Discussions, ULPs | Tagged | Leave a comment

HOW TO BARGAIN AROUND PAY FREEZES Thanks to warring politicians, it looks like we are headed for another year without an annual pay adjustment in January.  Consequently, unions need to focus more on how to increase employee compensation through contract negotiations.  One … Continue reading

Posted in Bargaining Tactics, Compensation | Tagged | 2 Comments

INTERESTING CONTRACT CLAUSES- NFFE & FOREST SERVICE   All union negotiators should be aware of what is in other contracts, but that can be hard to do as many exceed 200 pages. So, from time-to-time our small army of FEDSMILL … Continue reading

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