Posted on March 13, 2015 by AdminUN

DEPT. OF LABOR & IRS REPORT PROBLEMS?

Given the political climate, unions need to avoid any suggestion of internal problems, especially federal employee unions which are regulated by these two agencies.  So, imagine the fallout if AFGE had any significant degree of failure to timely file LM reports or NTEU locals did not file their 990s to preserve their tax exempt status.  Indeed, any union that fails to comply is risking some serious adverse public scrutiny by some politicians just looking for a reason to do away with them.  Consequently, nationals unions should monitor and enforce these obligations closely and union constitutions could help them.  For example, NATCA’s constitution provides the following: “The National Executive Board may withhold dues rebates for any Local failing to demonstrate remedy for any violation of Department of Labor, Internal Revenue Service or NATCA financial provisions within 90 days of receiving the report identifying violation(s).” Frankly, we wonder why a union’s national leadership would wait 90 days, or require board action rather than obligate the national president to take action within 15 days of notification.

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Posted on March 11, 2015 by AdminUN

ATTENTION FMLA ENTHUSIASTS AND ENFORCERS

If you are the person in the local who handles all the FMLA cases or you are negotiating a contract that will address FMLA matters, then you need to open the gift the American Bar Association just delivered. Each year it publishes an overview of the major court decisions that have addressed FMLA questions over the last twelve months—and the newest edition just came out.  Those of you with FMLA responsibilities should at least page through it to see what issues are still bouncing around in the courts and what are the newest precedent cutting decisions that might help your members.  Although private sector FMLA statutory provisions are notidentical to those for federal employees, they can be very helpful at times.

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Posted on March 10, 2015 by AdminUN

 

NEGOTIABILITY: FIRST, THE GOOD NEWS

A new FLRA negotiability decision (NTEU, 68 FLRA 334 (2015)  makes it a little bit easier for unions to enforce merit-based promotion decisions—if they can convince management to include the concepts in their collective bargaining agreement. Continue reading →

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Posted on March 10, 2015 by AdminUN

WHAT UNION REPS CAN DO THAT EMPLOYEES CAN’T

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 →

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Posted on March 9, 2015 by AdminUN

NTEU PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN BEGINS

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.

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Posted on March 6, 2015 by AdminUN

DEPRESSION AS A MITIGATION FACTOR

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 →

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Posted on March 6, 2015 by AdminUN

EEOC SPEAKS TO BACK PAY TAX LIABILITIES

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 →

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Posted on March 6, 2015 by AdminUN

THE ELAW ADVISOR

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 →

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Posted on March 5, 2015 by AdminUN

MODEL LOCAL WEBSITES

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 →

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Posted on March 3, 2015 by AdminUN

PRESIDENT KELLEY RETIRES FROM NTEU

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 →

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