BYE-BYE BWANA JIM; WELCOME MS. GRUNDMANN TO FLRA

Finalllllllllly!  This morning the Senate voted to confirm Susan Tsui Grundmann to take a seat at the FLRA.   STG is one of the most respected, professional, and knowledgeable neutrals in the federal sector community, and will undoubtedly return FLRA to a place where judicial scholarship rules rather than political retribution. Coupled with that wonderful news is the fact that with her being confirmed, Bwana Jim Abbott is out the door. Jim will be forever known as someone who was driven by a sense of tribal justice rather than legal scholarship. He knew he was put in that job to screw over unions and federal employees and he did just that no matter how often a federal circuit court said he was wrong. He rarely let an arbitrator’s award of back pay stand–seeming to take particular delight in taking overtime pay away from those who earned it.  Moreover, he imposed interpretations of the statute that increased rather than decreased the ambiguity of law, which is how a country moves from a government of laws to a government of political appointee biases. Most of all he set a new bar for what it means to be a political hypocrite. Here is a press release from NFFE with more details about the confirmation.