RETROACTIVE PAY FOR TEMPORARY PROMOTION & $377,000 MORE

What do you do if your supervisor dumps a bundle of higher graded work on you, but refuses to give you a temporary promotion for doing it? Fight! That’s what you do. The two Trump appointees to the FLRA screwed up feds’ ability to force the agency to pay for the level of work it assigns an employee, but a new case out of EEOC showed how it offers a reasonable path to the money you are owed and more.  In this case an employee was awarded a five-year retroactive promotion with step increases or about $50,000, plus over $137,000 in damages for the emotional harm she suffered and over $233,000 in attorney fees. She proved the agency denied her the promotion due to her race and prior EEO activity. The case is another good reminder why it is important to consider bringing in an EEO allegation when you grieve a contract obligation. For example, …   

how often will the union know at the time it files the grievance that the agency may have treated some other employee in a similar situation differently because of race, gender, age, etc.  That is the kind of information that normally does not come out until the union conducts a grievance investigation. However, by the time the union gets the evidence it needs to argue discrimination it is generally too late to file a new grievance or amend the old one.  For details about this case, check out Aleshia C. v. Denis R. McDonough, Sec’y, DVA, EEOC Request No. 2023003501, EEOC No 2021004909 (2023)