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.

WORKERS COMP FOR THE OVERWORKED The Department of Labor recently decided a case that reminds practitioners of an overworked employee’s right to collect workers compensation. In August 2013 an employee filed an occupational disease claim alleging that he sustained a … Continue reading

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WHO IS JOE HILL? SPRINGSTEEN KNOWS Joe Hill is an American labor movement legend whose stories and songs contributed heavily to the growth of unions in the early part of the last century.  Because only die-hard unionists may know who … Continue reading

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A BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO LABOR POLITICS With national politics heating up, we thought you might enjoy a story out of the Washington Post. It does a good job of explaining the different factions with America’s labor unions and why they … Continue reading

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PREGNANT@WORK.ORG The Center for WorkLife Law and the University of California (Hastings) has just made life a little easier for those of us practitioners who have pregnant employees or members. Their web site pulls together lots of useful information, e.g., … Continue reading

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HOW MUCH BACK PAY IS TOO MUCH? There have been many multi-million dollar arbitration awards in the federal sector.  Not long ago, the AFL-CIO unions teamed up to get $80 million out of the Indian Health Service. We also remember … Continue reading

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$120,000 LIGHT BULB If managers ever needed an example of why it is always easier to work out a quick, voluntary agreement to a problem-even when they have doubts about the validity of an employee’s problem, this is the case.  … Continue reading

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IS AGENCY USE OF GPS MONITORING I&I NEGOTIABLE? FLRA has not stepped up to this question yet, but sooner or later an agency is going to use this equipment to monitor employees conduct, if not performance. But it is fair … Continue reading

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MSPB REVERSES REMOVAL FOR UNION ANIMUS While we rarely think of MSPB as a place to slug out a dispute over whether an agency’s unacceptable performance removal of an employee was due to union animus, the Board just reminded us … Continue reading

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AMAZON CREATIVELY EXPANDS FMLA RIGHTS AMAZON sent a message around the cyberspace community as well as our little brick and mortar world by allowing parents of newborn children, who both work for Amazon, to transfer their time off days from … Continue reading

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BEWARE AN ARBITRATOR’S BACK PAY “COMPROMISE” In late August a case came rolling out of FLRA that has the potential to confuse lots of practitioners. The arbitrator found that the agency had not properly compensated an employee for 12 years … Continue reading

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