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.

WHY VA NURSES SHOULD STUDY WALL STREET Wall Street moguls might not care about values, ethics, morality, statutes, humanity, the environment, the common good, or world peace, but the U.S. Veteran Affairs nurses could benefit greatly from doing what they … Continue reading

Posted in Union Administration | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

OUR FAVORITE APPROPRIATE ARRANGEMENT PROPOSALS (Pt. 1) Agency managers are free to change anything in an employee’s working conditions they choose (and whenever they choose) so long as they are exercising a 7106 management right.  They can assign an employee new … Continue reading

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NTEU REELS IN $2.61 MILLION FOR FDIC DISCRIMINATION VICTIMS Long-time FEDSMILL readers might remember our posting entitled, “FDIC Flips, Flops, Flaps, & Flails” in which we described how mightily FDIC management was struggling to get off the hook of a … Continue reading

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MSPB EXPANDS ACCUSED EMPLOYEE’S RIGHT TO INFORMATION A Homeland Security Agent was fired for falsifying an official form.  When he tried to defend himself by pointing out how supervisory employees who committed the same offense were not fired, DHS management … Continue reading

Posted in Discipline/Adverse Action, Information | Tagged | Leave a comment

HOW TO CHALLENGE FURLOUGH PROPOSALS Thousands of feds are facing notices of proposed furloughs and the dilemma of whether or not to challenge them via the oral/written reply process or beyond.   A challenge is more likely to pay off than … Continue reading

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DIRECTED REASSIGNMENT CASE LAW OVERHAULED Agencies have the right to terminate an employee who refuses an order to reassign, but only so long as the agency has a bona fide need for the employee to be located elsewhere.  Or at … Continue reading

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COMPENSATION INCREASES UNIONS CAN BARGAIN (Pt. 2) There are around two dozen ways unions can negotiate to put extra cash in members’ pockets.  In Part 1 of this two-part posting we covered 12 of them.  Now for some others, some … Continue reading

Posted in Bargaining, Bargaining Negotiability, Compensation | Tagged | 2 Comments

IS PUNCTUALITY AN ESSENTIAL JOB ELEMENT? Most people think so, but now a federal circuit court has raised the possibility that it might not be in every case. For generations employers have fired employees for failing to report to work … Continue reading

Posted in ADA/ADAAA, Discipline/Adverse Action | Leave a comment

100,000 NEW UNION MEMBERS That is how much AFGE’s total membership increased between January 2001 and January 2013. It just reported to the Department of Labor that it has a total of 299,642 members. Congrats to them for all the … Continue reading

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COMPENSATION INCREASES UNIONS CAN BARGAIN(Pt.1) There are over two dozen ways unions can negotiate to put extra cash in members’ pockets. That is great news for employees during these times of wage freezes and yet another reason they should support … Continue reading

Posted in Bargaining, Bargaining Negotiability, Compensation | Tagged , | 2 Comments