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.

WELCOME TO I&I RESOLUTIONS If nothing else, labor relations is about managing conflict, and the better one is at doing that the better the job one is likely to do. A couple of ex- federal employees with a ton of … Continue reading

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HATCH ACT GUIDANCE ON SOCIAL MEDIA The federal election season is already underway and that means it is time to brush up on what the Hatch Act allows feds to do and prohibits them from doing. The Office of Special … Continue reading

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FOR THE IN-HOUSE FMLA UNION AND AGENCY EXPERTS Processing FMLA claims is an important part of the services provided by unions as well as agency ER shops. While the basics of the law are well-known, the odd situations and exceptions of … Continue reading

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HURRAY FOR MANAGEMENT? As expected, our management guys on the FLRA (Kiko and Abbott) have started to come through for us managers.  For years the Authority has insisted that once an agency enters into and approves a labor agreement it … Continue reading

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FSIP THUMBS ITS NOSE AT FLRA For over two decades FLRA has been issuing decisions outlining how an agency wishing to raise a “covered-by” defense to a union’s demand to bargain must meet the following test: ”If the agreement does … Continue reading

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PANEL COVERS OVER ILLEGAL MANAGEMENT MANEUVER FSIP is quickly stacking up examples of its extreme bias on behalf of management.  Its latest stunt was to cover up, gloss over, steer around, compensate for, etc. an open and shut agency violation of … Continue reading

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WHY DOESN’T FSIP GET IT ABOUT DECISION FALLOUT? One of our continuing beefs with the Panel is that it regularly fails to consider the long-term fallout of its decisions. For example, it recently rejected a union proposal that assignments to … Continue reading

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WHEN PAST PRACTICE TRUMPS CONTRACT LANGUAGE What do you do if management suddenly announces that despite following a certain past practice for years, which obviously conflicted with the contract language, it is now pronouncing the past practice dead and insisting … Continue reading

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HOW TO PROVE DISCRIMINATORY PRETEXT Once the agency puts forth its explanation for why it made the decision the employee considered discriminatory, e.g., a promotion, a reassignment, a suspension, etc., the employee is expected to prove that the explanation is … Continue reading

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WHAT IS THE ANSWER TO THIS OVERTIME PROBLEM? Practitioners on both side of the table come up against the following facts. The agency wants to keep overtime costs down. So, it decides to have its first line supervisors start doing … Continue reading

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