Category Archives: Grievance/Arbitration

25 MANAGEMENT ACTIONS FEDERAL EMPLOYEES COMMONLY GRIEVE PASS ME ON TO UNIT MEMBERS– You may never have filed a grievance challenging a management decision, but thousands of federal employees do each year and many get the corrective action they wanted—whether … Continue reading

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UNION NEGOTIATOR’S QUIZ Imagine you are in this situation.  You are in term negotiations and the agency refused to bargain over three provisions that have been in the agreement for more than a decade.  It claims they are suddenly non-negotiable.  … Continue reading

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QUIZ: WHAT IS WRONG WITH UNION REPS? Please excuse our frustration, but it very painful to read about cases that unions lost but easily could have won if they drafted the grievance correctly. Union reps need to protect themselves from … Continue reading

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TALK IS OK, BUT FILING IS NECESSARY When management does something the union disagrees with, it if fine to try to settle the matter without formally filing a grievance, bargaining demand, ULP, etc. A new FLRA decision, however, makes it … Continue reading

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WELL, THEY DID IT AGAIN AT FLRA We’re not referring to Abbott and Kiko overturning yet another long-standing labor law principle, ruling against a union, nor even overturning an arbitrator. That is who they are and what the President expected … Continue reading

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HOW TO AVOID THE “EXCESSIVE INTERFERENCE LITE” TRAP Now that Trump’s two operatives on the FLRA have made clear their intention to weaken unions and collective bargaining, unions would be wise to counter the pending onslaught of precedent-trashing decisions from … Continue reading

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QUIZ: WHERE IN THE WORLD IS THE REMEDY? On April 24, 2017 FLRA decided a case where the arbitrator found that the agency had violated the contract when it refused to approve full-time telework for an employee. However, because the … Continue reading

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AAGGGHHHH!  THIS MISTAKE HURTS! We have written about this before, yet still double over with pain every time we see this blunder.  Although we are not going to identify the union or even proclaim that it was the union rather … Continue reading

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GRIEVANCE DRAFTING TIPS 1, 2 & 3 Most contracts merely require the union to put the following in the grievance: 1- Article and section violated, 2- Description of the grieved event, and 3- Remedy desired.   As clear as that or … Continue reading

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NTEU GRIEVANCE DECISION HIGHLIGHTS DRAFTING ERROR See if you can spot the error in this case. Six employees were improperly denied annual leave requests. The union filed individual grievances for each of them and at arbitration consolidated them under the … Continue reading

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