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.

UNION BOOSTS CUBICLE PRIVACY NTEU won a FSIP decision in early August requiring the agency (EPA, Region 7) to not only give unit employees cubicle walls that had 46 inch high solid material bases, but to also add 22 additional … Continue reading

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SEVERANCE PAY IS NOT SUBJECT TO FICA If your members earn the right to collect severance pay, you might want to remind the employer that it should not withhold FICA tax from the check.  If they ask why, direct them … Continue reading

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NEGOTIATORS BEWARE OF MOUs A new FLRA decision (AFGE, 64 FLRA 1113)leaves all us practitioners just a little more confused about the process for terminating not just a mid-term MOU agreement, but also the practices it established. AFGE lost the … Continue reading

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HOW PAY REFORM SCREWED SES EMPLOYEES As we have said before, it looks like all the usual suspects (also known as the private profit-obsessed beltway consulting firms—or beltway bandits if you prefer the regional slang) are actively trying to drum … Continue reading

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WHAT IS THAT SMELL? That can be not just an idle question, but also the first sign that employees need union help. There is a near endless source of scents in modern offices, e.g., perfumes, paint, flooring, ink, dust, furniture … Continue reading

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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

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