Posted on February 23, 2015 by AdminUN

AFGE BOOSTS ITS FINANCIAL STRENGTH

AFGE recently announced that it has paid off the mortgage on its headquarters building, located in a prime spot just a couple of blocks from the U.S. Congress in Washington, DC. Based on its DOL report, that will free up a million dollars or more that the union can use to boost the representational return on the $20.00 a month each member pays in dues, e.g., more staff, more media support of federal employees, more lobbying, etc. The Federation has done a lot of great work over a recent 12 year period driving up membership in locals with chronically low membership, raising its annual income from $39 million to $119 million, and reducing its financial liabilities in one year by $23 million.  Finally owning its national headquarters is yet another financial achievement. The union has a lot to be proud of.

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Posted on February 23, 2015 by AdminUN

INTERESTING FURLOUGH MOU

The FLRA just issued a decision describing the creative way that one union structured sequester furloughs through an MOU. The National Association of Independent Labor (NAIL) negotiated the following concerning employee rights to pick the days on which they would serve their required number of furlough days: The “normal schedule for furlough would be one . . . eight[-]hour day per week.” But the MOU also provided that “mission/workload permitting, [bargaining-unit employees] may elect and be permitted to complete the furlough requirements in increments of between eight . . . and forty . . . hours per week . . . [i]f the schedule does not impact mission/workload requirements.” The arbitrator and FLRA upheld an award of back pay to employees when the agency failed to live by the agreement language. It is something to think about when the agency wants total control over who is furloughed when. NAIL, 68 FLRA 279 (2015)

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Posted on February 17, 2015 by AdminUN

POPA’S AWARD AGREEMENT ASTONISHING

The Patent Office Professional Association is one of our favorite unions if for no other reason than it knows how to protect benefits once negotiated.  It wrote the book on how a union can dig its heals in when management comes looking for take backs. Don’t consider yourself a top notch union negotiator until you have read every page of its record over the years. POPA, 60 FLRA 869 (2005) is only the beginning. Looking over its home page, we noticed that it still has in place  incentive award agreements that guarantee big cash awards.  That is not an easy feat, but totally deserving given the cash agencies have set aside to reward SES executives. We have taken the liberty of dropping into our post below a page from POPA’s web site (popa.org) that describes its programs.  Bravo POPA and thanks for showing us some very sophisticated tactics over the years. Continue reading →

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Posted on February 17, 2015 by AdminUN

ANOTHER AMAZING AFGE ACCOMPLISHMENT

If your read Joe Davidson’s column in Washington Post on February 16th, you already know about AFGE’s latest achievement in Homeland Security. We know it is a blockbuster because we cannot think of the last time a union succeeded in getting an agency to reclassify thousands of positions so that the journey-level grade is raised from a GS-9 to a GS-12.  That will not only increase their annual salaries, but their pensions, overtime pay, and tax-deferred saving potential. WOW!  Position classifications are the toughest problem to solve.  Law prohibits unions from grieving classification decisions, bargaining over them, or even going to court. In our experience, change like this only comes about because of persuasion and power, but we are sure it did not hurt that AFGE represents the great majority of DHS employees.

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Posted on February 11, 2015 by AdminUN

MANIPULATING EXECUTIVE BOARD EXPERTISE

While national union leaders are constantly asking agency managers to involve employees in workplace decisions, some leaders operate under constitutions that deliberately exclude the best local union leaders from also setting internal union policy.  We can’t point you to a court case that states unequivocally that it is illegal to do so, but we are going to lay out the arguments about why it could be illegal.  We will also spend a few words on the far more important point, i.e., why would it ever benefit a union to exclude its top talent from leadership positions. Suppose your union has a rule that prohibits anyone from holding more than one elected office, e.g., local union presidents may not simultaneously serve on the national executive board. If they want one, they must give up the other. Continue reading →

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Posted on February 11, 2015 by AdminUN

FLRA’S FINAL SOLUTION FOR WORKLOAD: HUMAN TRAFFICKING (Pt. 2)

A couple of weeks ago we outlined how FLRA has interpreted about a half-dozen words in the statute to give management rights that take about a hundred words to list.  We listed several  responses  the union should initiate once management passes a certain point exercising its FLRA-bestowed right to dump more and more work on employees until they die of exhaustion.  One was that the union can demand to negotiate a system for counting work in a fair and equitable manner to ensure uniformity.  The unquestioned intellectual experts, if not geniuses, in counting work are the folks over at the Patent Office Professional Association (POPA). If your union proposed a work count system even one-third as complex at theirs, managers would be “highly motivated” to dole out work more reasonably.  So, check out what POPA does if you face an out of control workload problem.

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Posted on February 11, 2015 by AdminUN

(TIGTA) THIS IG NEEDS INVESTIGATING

J. Russell George has led a decent life and we are not going to suggest that he is anything other than a fine person. In fact, we will always remember him for what may his single most notable achievement in life, namely, dating Michelle Obama before “Barry” did. However, just as the First Lady reached a quick decision to move on from him, it is time that Treasury gave the same decision some thought and retired him from his job as the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) where he is regularly either misleading the public or serving up reports that Congress ignores.  For example, he recently issued a report announcing that among the thousands and thousands of employees IRS moves in and out of duty status each year as the tax work ebbs and flows, it returns to duty several who have had discipline or performance problems.  (It is all over the media cheaply filling column inches or on air minutes for them.) That is a fair observation, but it was not fair to suggest that this is due solely to IRS mismanagement.  Here is what this IG did not tell us that would have completed the story and put the blame where it belongs, which is not with IRS. Continue reading →

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Posted on February 9, 2015 by AdminUN

WOW!  NWSEO GOES ALL IN ON 1187 BONUSES

Just a couple of weeks ago we were extolling AFGE’s commitment to boosting membership by giving out $100 for every newly signed 1187. CITE But the National Weather Service Employees Organization has gone far beyond that with this announcement, “NWSEO will provide airfare, 3-nights lodging, and group meals for the 2015 convention” to “any NWSEO member who recruits two or more new members to join NWSEO using the 1187 for payroll deduction.”  The program is in effect for an entire year before the convention.  Now that is organizational commitment, but it is needed. The union claims to represent about 4,000 unit employees, but has reported to DOL that only 1,475 are paying dues.  NWSEO has a good record of improving working conditions for its members, e.g., it just got employees a $300 rebate for any fitness club fees they pay, got local Administrative Support Assistants upgraded to GS-8, it stopped a 4-day sequestration furlough plan, etc.  Consequently, once again we see that low membership figures are not about the quality of representation, but about leading the union to address all the other critical variables and driving up a commitment to recruit co-workers is the next best option for driving improvement. 

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Posted on February 9, 2015 by AdminUN

WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU WERE THIS UNION’S PRESIDENT?

Most leadership programs put participants in hypothetical situations, give them the facts, and then ask them to lead their group to a solution.  What follows is a tale of two similar locals inside NTEU, but they could be in any union. They all face similar problems.  Look over the facts below, assume that you are the national president of the union, and develop a solution. Continue reading →

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Posted on February 9, 2015 by AdminUN

FSIP DESIGNS NOVEL LEAVE SELECTION SYSTEM

Most every union wrestles with how annual leave requests should be approved.  One of the more common struggles is between giving those with seniority preference versus giving the younger employees with families a chance at some of the traditional family holiday.  AFGE’s Food Safety Inspectors just got a decision from the Federal Service Impasses Panel (FSIP) setting out how to prioritize leave requests between full-time employees and temporary employees, who apparently are not in the unit due to their temp status, when they both request the same day off. (AFGE, 2014 FSIP 109 (2015))  It is an approach we have not seen before. Although Panel decisions are not precedent for other cases, it always pays to know how the Panel solves problems.  Here is the portion of the decision explaining what language the parties are ordered to put in their agreement. Continue reading →

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