When can a federal law enforcement officer (LEO) claim FLSA time and one-half overtime pay if he already is paid administratively uncontrollable overtime (AUO) to work hours beyond the normal 40 hour shift? Continue reading
Assume that your contract has a clause that mirrors the statutory obligation to bargain, i.e., it obligates management to notify and bargain over any midterm changes in working conditions before implementing them. Further assume that management makes a unilateral change and you decide to file a grievance charging it with violating the statutory obligation to bargain found at 5 USC 7116(a)(5). Can you figure out what you just did wrong? Continue reading
What’s the remedy when an employee is terminated for refusing to participate in a disciplinary investigation of his/her behavior, despite the fact that the employer refused to give the employee a reasonable opportunity to get a union rep involved? In the federal sector FLRA has rejected a “make whole” remedy reinstating the employee or giving back pay because it claims it needs to balance the government’s need to be efficient with the employee’s statutory rights. Check out AFGE, 55 FLRA 1250 (2000) for the Authority’s rationale. However, the NLRB has just decided that a make whole remedy is appropriate not just when management refuses to let the employee have a union rep, but also when it fails to give the employee reasonable time to get one. Check out the Labor Relations Today story describing the Board’s decision. It will be interesting to see if the Authority follows the Board because we at FEDSMILL have no clue as to why it interferes with agency efficiency to reinstate an employee when he is terminated due to an agency’s illegal unilateral change in working conditions, but not when his other statutory rights are violated. Given the Board’s decision, union reps should be demanding a full “make whole” remedy any time the so-called Weingarten right is violated–at least until we see if the Authority follows or rejects the Board’s thinking.
We have been saying it for a while. The HR/LR operation at Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency has little respect for the law. Check out these two FEDSMILL postings: CBP/DHS, LIKE A FISH, IS ROTTING FROM THE HEAD FIRST and LR’S BIGGEST LOSERS. AFGE and NTEU deserve credit for pursuing CBP’s illegal/improper personnel actions like a hungry junk yard dog. They sank their litigation teeth in nearly a decade ago and have not let go while they wait for FLRA and possibly the courts to tell CBP leadership that this game is over and it is time to start writing checks to all the employees it cheated out of money. But now the two unions have a new ally that has opened a third front for CBP’s besieged HR leaders. The U. S. Special Counsel has opened an investigation into alleged deliberate efforts by a former Commissioner and his HR folks to ignore merit rules to give three people very high paying CBP jobs. We do not know the status of the investigation, but we did notice on USAJOBS.gov that CBP is looking to fill a recent vacancy in its top HR job. Stay tuned for an update on the Special Counsel investigation as well as any resolution of the multi-million dollar grievance claims the two unions have pending.
Here is something to watch. The National Federation of Federal Employees just announced it now represents private sector, non-federal, non-governmental workers. In July, the NLRB certified it as the representative of the “Golden Triangle Business Improvement District” employees, whose parent company of “Block-by-Block,” which is part of the “SMS Holdings Company.” We are happy for NFFE and for the now union-represented employees. Continue reading
To begin, it is the latest union to organize a new group of federal employees, and for that we pass on our Congrats. But beyond that it is a union that has quietly served notice on the much bigger and better known federal sector unions such as AFGE, NTEU, AFSCME and SEIU that it intends to be a player in the federal government, especially among the more professional occupations. For example, its newest unit brings to over 2,000 the number of federal Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) it represents—and that raises the question of why white collar, professionals employees in very high profile agencies are choosing IFPTE over those other unions. After all, what union would not want to represent employees at the— Continue reading
MSPB just overturned the removal of an employee on a Maxiflex schedule. The agency thought the employee had been tardy when he failed to report to work at an early enough time to fulfill his obligation to complete 80 hours of work in the pay period. This case shines a bright light on just what can the agency do, or be allowed to do by the collective bargaining agreement, when an employee fails to work the full 80 hours of a maxiflex pay period. Continue reading
Check out this article on micro-unions. While they are unlikely to appear in the federal sector, they might help revive the private sector.