Author Archives: AdminUN

About AdminUN

FEDSMILL staff has over 40 years of federal sector labor relations experience on the union as well as management side of the table and even some time as a neutral.

CAN SOLAR PANELS BOOST UNION MEMBERSHIP? One way unions attract new members is by offering benefits, especially economic benefits, only to members. The benefit must be attractive by itself, the savings substantial, and the deal limited only to members. But … Continue reading

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TRANSGENDER FEDERAL EMPLOYEE WINS DISCRIMINATION CASE The Washington Post just published a story about how the U.S. Special Counsel convinced the Dept. of Army to correct the harm done to a transgender employee from “frequent, pervasive, and humiliating” gender-identity discrimination. … Continue reading

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BID & ROTATION DYNAMICS The Panel just issued a decision dealing with the right of AFGE Correctional Officers to bid into various assignments by seniority. (AFGE, 2014 FSIP 48) NTEU CBP Officers and several other law enforcement groups have similar … Continue reading

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DEVELOPING NATIONAL UNION LEADERS FROM WITHIN Running a national labor unions well demands a lot of skill. AFGE, for example, has an annual budget of over $100 million, 300,000 members, and thousands of locals involving almost every government agency. Even … Continue reading

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CAPE COD LAWYER RESCUES DISABLED CBP OFFICERS Not long ago we posted a story entitled, “MSPB Recklessly Denies CBP Officers Disability Rights,” which described a new MSPB decision holding that it was not (and likely would never be) a reasonable … Continue reading

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THE BEST OF FEDSMILL ON BARGAINING We have been at this for three years, but so many of our readers either joined us after we started or were in very different union leadership positions then. So, we thought we would … Continue reading

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Be sure to check back in one week when we will publish the best articles about bargaining that we have issued over the last three years.

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WANT TO KNOW WHAT WORK YOUR AGENCY HAS CONTRACTED OUT-OR WILL? FLRA has made it very clear that while unions cannot negotiate over an agency’s substantive decision to contract out work, they can negotiate over impact and implementation issues. (See NAGE, 61 … Continue reading

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WHAT DO SELECTING OFFICIALS OWE BQ CANDIDATES–AGAIN? We can’t say this often enough.  When Selecting Officials non-select BQ candidates, especially those with higher scores than the selectee, the Selecting Official (SO) must provide the non-selected applicant something more than a … Continue reading

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GAO GIVES UNIONS A WAY TO BUILD THEIR IMAGE, RELATIONSHIPS, & MEMBERSHIP An agency recently asked the General Accountability Office (Comptroller General) if it could use agency funds to buy refreshments for an employee CFC rally designed to boost contributions. … Continue reading

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