All employees do not have equal legal rights. Union representatives have far more rights than most. In fact, they have far more rights than the average manager. So, if you hear anyone asking the question, “What Can the Union Do for Me?” here is just a short list of the powers a union rep can put to work for employees the minute a union is certified in an election. Continue reading
The Washington Post carried a nice piece March 9th about the retiring NTEU National President, but the bigger news may be what it did not address, namely, the campaign to replace her. The first announced candidates appear to be Tony Reardon and Jim Bailey for President and Executive Vice President, respectively. Both have been NTEU staffers almost from the day they graduated from school. Tony spent most of his time with NTEU running the business side of the $40 million dollar a year operation, namely, accounting, real estate, investments, technology, etc. However, over a year ago he was elected National Executive Vice President which put him into significant representational work. For example, he chaired the recently completed NTEU-IRS contract. Jim is an attorney who came up through the ranks of the field staff. Most recently he has been in charge of how local chapters got serviced, e.g., arbitration of selected grievances, local bargaining assistance, membership building, field staff assignments, etc.. The election is early this August and we will report if any other candidates arise from the membership to create a race. This election is not just a big deal for NTEU, but the entire federal sector given the pivotal position NTEU holds to drive change in many unions.
A recent MSPB decision further validated that an employee’s depression is a legitimate mitigation factor in personal actions, even if it does not become known until after the action was taken. Continue reading
Here is a very interesting case from EEOC in which it ordered a federal agency not only to reimburse an employee for any extra tax liability flowing from a large back pay check, but it required the agency to promote the employee twice. Check out the short summary of the case written in EEOC’s own words. Continue reading
As we have said before, several federal agencies have developed what we will call “A-Z Indexes” to simplify a user’s search for HR/ER/LR information. Typically, these indexes pull together the most important information a user might need to quickly get a moderately detailed understanding of the law, regs, case law, policy, etc. If designed well, they extract only the most significant information from the dozens of laws, hundreds of regulations, and thousands of case law decisions and present that in an easy to understand format. We want to bring to your attention yet another “A-Z” tool that union reps should find helpful. It is run by the U. S. Dept. of Labor and called “eLaws.” Continue reading
NFFE’s Local 1998 at the Passport Service, AFGE’s Councils in the Bureau of Prisons, HUD and VA, all qualify as models against any criteria. They have up to date news, helpful pages, easy to digest layouts, and lots of hard information. NFFE is doing a great job keeping folks current on all its litigation, while the three AFGE councils do a particularly good job reporting on midterm negotiations. But just as we did over three years ago, we are going to declare NTEU Chapter 293, representing employees at the Securities and Exchange Commission, to be the best. You understand what is there in a glance without scrolling past large pictures or slashing your way through clutter, although if you want to read the last seven years of their newsletters they are there too under a menu button. But best of all, it has been strategically planned to attract members. For example, Continue reading
Colleen Kelley, a fixture around NTEU for decades, announced today that she will leave office this August. She first made an impact as president of the NTEU IRS chapter in Pittsburgh, PA where she nearly doubled the local’s membership overnight once she was elected. Not long afterwards, Bob Tobias, the previous NTEU National President, tapped her for a major committee assignment at the NTEU convention and to serve on the IRS national bargaining team. Then, when Tobias needed someone to focus the union on membership building, he hired her away from IRS in 1988 to run that critical program. From there, he put her in charge of all the administrative elements of a national union, e.g., finance, information technology, property, etc. Given her rapid ascension inside the union, it was no surprise when Tobias asked the convention delegates to elect her as National Executive Vice President in 1995, putting her in the “heir apparent” position for when he retired in 1999. Continue reading
Socorro Thome was a trained and experienced Customs and Border Protection Officer (CBPO) in the tough port of El Paso, Texas when she became pregnant in November 2010. At that point, she began light duty work. Following the birth and some FMLA leave, she returned to work in October 2011 approved to work without physical restrictions. However, two weeks later she asked to be returned to light duty because she planned to breastfeed her child until he was one year old and his pediatrician “highly recommended” that the Officer continue on light duty while breastfeeding due to a concern that “she may be exposed to contaminants such as lead, drugs, or infectious diseases that may be transmitted to the child through breast milk.” She backed that up with a note from her own doctor and in January 2012 email, an agency Labor and Employment Relations Specialist stated that she had determined that the appellant’s medical documentation was sufficient to support her request to remain on light duty while breastfeeding. Three weeks later the Port Director gave her a letter insisting that she return to full duty or resign. When she refused to choose, he proposed to remove her on a charge of “Unavailability for Full Performance of Customs and Border Protection Officer Duties,” citing her “continued unwillingness or inability” to fully perform CBPO duties. The deciding official sustained the charge, noting that although Thome was medically able to fully perform her duties she chose to make herself unavailable. He also stated that Thome’s demand to be isolated from lead, drugs, and infectious diseases was “literally impossible to fulfill” and pointe out that the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) had conducted a study which determined that “exposure for agency employees was within tolerable limits.” Do you see the error the agency made that guaranteed Thome would win the case? (Hint: It has nothing to do with pregnancy discrimination.) Continue reading
Before we turn to three other parts of a grievance where you can boost its winning potential and impact, remember this. If you were unable to draft the grievance broadly enough during the grievance stage, often arbitrators will allow the parties to deviate from the exact wording of the grievance and the management responses when crafting the formal issues statement for him. If you have that opportunity, here is an example of how a promotion-related grievance might be written for the arbitrator, “Did the agency violate Article X, Section Y of the parties’ agreement or any law, rule or regulation when it denied the following individuals promotion.” So, now let’s turn away from the grievance issue to look at your other opportunities. Continue reading