If your local has numerous disputes over travel, per diem, and other reimbursement matters, you might want to sign up for the on-line training course GSA offers in the Federal Travel Regs that you can find at http://www.gsa.gov/portal/content/103243
Let’s assume that you find management has incorrectly told some employees over the last nine months that they may only be compensated with comp time to work extra hours, not time-and-one-half overtime pay. Then, as soon as you point out to LR that the FLSA-covered employees should have received the extra money, it agrees you are right and offers to settle the dispute. Its offer is to give them the difference between the straight-time salary rate of any comp time they already used and time-and one-half overtime pay. Unused comp time would be compensated at the full overtime rate. Is that a good deal? Continue reading
The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals just administered a major smack down to HUD when it let a deciding official (DO) talk to witnesses after management had issued its proposed termination letter. (See Rayland Young v. Dept. of HUD, (Fed. Cir. 2013). The court made it clear yet again that once the proposed adverse action letter has been issued management is almost always barred from collecting additional information about the case. Continue reading
EEOC has very specific rules about where employee FMLA and sick leave medical documents can be stored. If the agency violates them, they may owe the employee money damages—as a recent Dept. of Justice case demonstrated. Continue reading
We just took a look at the latest version of the Authority’s annual report and what a difference it shows between how well the FLRA is managed today under Carol Waller Pope in comparison to under her predecessor, Dale Cabaniss, an appointee of the previous President. Four years ago this agency was in shambles and a good candidate for the most poorly managed agency in government under Cabaniss, who resigned shortly after some damning information about her effectiveness hit the web. Continue reading