A manager at the National Institute of Health filed an EEO complainant alleging that she had been subject to gender and national origin harassment. The agency offered to settle the dispute by giving her $90,000 in return for her resignation. She accepted and then the agency took advantage of her. Continue reading
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) terminated a manager for “defalcation of obligations.” The Board ordered the employee reinstated with back pay because FDIC ignored what we are going to call the “OGE Defense,” namely, 5 CFR 2635.105 of the Office of Government Ethics regulations. (See Jonson v. FDIC, 2014 MSPB 22 (2014)) Here is what that all means and how you can use it to help your members. Continue reading
According to the Dept. of Labor AFGE has increased the number of employees paying dues every year since 2000 when 197,000 federal employees were members. Today, DOL reports AFGE has over 301,000 dues paying members, an increase of over 50%. By comparison, none of the other federal sector unions came even close to that streak of consecutive growth years nor to the 50% increase in members during that time. Continue reading
How ironic that just a few short months after stripping federal employees of any right to challenge the substance or design of a furlough, suddenly the Board is concerned with absurdities. The case involved an employee who was fired for being physically unable to work for a prolonged period of time. Wren v. Dept. of Army, 2014 MSPB 20 (2014) Continue reading
Can management refuse to even consider employee applicants who meet the minimum qualifications for a promotion vacancy? For example, could it refuse to consider, rate and rank qualified employees because they were bald or vegetarians? How about if they were carpoolers, graduates of public universities, or even Yankee fans? Of course not. But, how about if they work or live outside the commuting area of the vacancy? A lot of managers think they can exclude otherwise qualified agency applicants from any promotion consideration based on where the employees live or work or even when they apply. We don’t, and here’s why. Continue reading
It has been a long time since the National Treasury Employees Union organized only employees of the Treasury department. Today, it represents employees of dozens of federal agencies, and in the last few months has welcomed the employees of two other agencies. The first was the Consumer Financial Protection Board, which is an independent agency created after the financial meltdown and scandals the Obama Administration inherited. The other is the National Capitol Region of the National Park Service, whose Rangers and maintenance staff previously had been represented by the painters’ union. Congrats to NTEU and anyone else organizing unrepresented employees. And congrats to the Park Service employees who believing they were not getting what they needed from their prior union did something about it.
There is no shortage of publicly available newsletters covering federal employment issues. However, AFGE has one that focuses on the news from the perspective of employees. It is a very worthwhile source of information. If your local likes to pass on information to employees to help them understand the need to stand up for themselves in a united way, this is a good place to get material.
Law requires selecting officials to explain to non-selected BQ promotion applicants why they were passed over. In fact, it requires them to be quite specific about why. See if you can figure out which of these selecting official explanations meets the requirements of law.
Laborradio.org just reported that the AFGE Council of locals in the Environmental Protection Administration has settled a grievance for $35 million in retroactive overtime pay. EPA management had told these employees they were not covered by the overtime laws–when they were. The union stood up for them and worked this dispute for nearly six years before management relented. This is another fine example of a union protecting employees when many of them did not even know they were being cheated. It is unclear what this will mean for those EPA employees not represented by AFGE.