ABBOTT DISPLAYS GROSS BIAS, BUT WHAT ELSE IS NEW

Jimbo Abbott’s anti-union bias is hardly headline news at this point.  He is desperate to get a better job from his political sponsors even if it means leaving a trail of biased decisional chaos behind him. A lot of baseball umpires can figure out what kind of ball a pitcher is going to throw before they throw it thanks to a tell or pattern they pick up. But now imagine that the ump informs the opposing batter before each pitch what it will be. The ump would deserve to be tossed out of the profession for such bias—if not “touched” by a stray fast ball. Well, that is what Abbott did recently. The official case that came before the Authority called for it to simply decide whether an arbitrator’s award of attorney fees was legal.  That is the only issue the agency filed exceptions over, and the three members agreed it was not legal. But that was not good enough for the unprincipled Abbott. Stopping there apparently offended his sense of anti-union contempt.  So, he decided to write a “Concurring Comment” to tell the agency that even though it did not object to another part of the award, he would rule it illegal if the agency had.  Put another way, he advised the agency to inform the union that even though it did not file timely exceptions over the issue, it was now going to refuse to comply with that portion of the arbitrator’s award as well because Jim Abbott, the so-called neutral, had sent it a very strong signal that they will hit a home run if they do. If you are thinking that Jimbo took action to destabilize a local labor relationship where there was no dispute, you would be correct. That is apparently what his political sponsors want him to do. See Dept. of Navy, CA and FPO, 70 FLRA 978 (2018)