Category Archives: Discipline/Adverse Action
TEST YOURSELF- FMLA, DISABILITIES, AND LIGHT DUTY An employee, Jessie Crutch, had a long-time reasonable accommodation of being allowed to rest his hip for a few minutes every few hours while working as a warehouse custodian. As the injury got … Continue reading
Posted in Discipline/Adverse Action, EEO/Disabilities, FMLA, Test Yourself
Tagged FMLA, Rehabilitation Act
Leave a comment
WHEN AGENCIES LIE IN SETTLEMENT TALKS Here are the facts that MSPB recently faced. Two employees got into a fight at the workplace and were fired. As their MSPB appeal hearings grew closer, the agency made settlement offers and one … Continue reading
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
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
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
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
WHEN DECIDING OFFICIALS GO EX PARTE The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals just administered a major smack down to HUD when it let a deciding official (DO) talk to witnesses after management had issued its proposed termination letter. (See Rayland … Continue reading
MSPB CLARIFIES INDEFINITE SUSPENSION RULES The law gives management the right to put someone on an immediate, indefinite suspension if it believes the person is guilty of a criminal offense for which he/she may be imprisoned. Unfortunately, agencies are a … Continue reading
EMPLOYEES CAN WITHDRAW RESIGNATIONS & DOWNGRADE REQUESTS At times, agency managers will pressure and even harass an employee to the point that he gives up and resigns or asks for a downgrade to an easier job. Once the managers have … Continue reading
DISCIPLINE’S “DISPARATE PENALTIES” DEFENSE MSPB just issued a decision that should help unions successfully represent disciplined employees. It clarified, and some say expanded, the union’s ability to argue that any penalty must be mitigated, if not totally overturned, if the … Continue reading