Often an employer must adjust an employee’s performance standards once it approves the employee’s FMLA leave request. Not long ago a Federal Circuit Court spelled it out for LR practitioners on both sides of the table. Continue reading
MSPB just issued a decision that should help unions successfully represent disciplined employees. It clarified, and some say expanded, the union’s ability to argue that any penalty must be mitigated, if not totally overturned, if the agency’s uses disparate penalties. Continue reading
Most feds know that you have to be paid for any work they do, but not many recognize that the things they do before their shift to get ready for work are legally work that must be compensated—even if it means giving them overtime pay. This is a problem wherever employees must perform tasks prior to a shift to be ready to work the second the shift begins or even after the shift is over to conclude the day’s work activities or help the next shift take over. AFGE’s Council of Prison Locals (CPL) just won a very well written arbitration decision that will generate a lot of retroactive overtime pay for its members. It is a decision that should be read by any union leaders worried about similar violations because it explains the law and regulations so clearly.
We recommend that you check out the blog page cited below. A judge has held that employees are entitled to FMLA leave if they are the care giver for a covered member of the family and that covered member needs them to accompany them on vacation, e.g., to Vegas. Continue reading
A manager warned a maintenance employee to be careful who she told about how offended she was by finding a pornographic magazine in the restroom. The supervisor may have just been trying to get the employee to be discrete or to let him deal with the problem before she went outside her chain of command, but the employee and EEOC saw the manager’s words as a violation of law and ordered it to write a substantial check. Continue reading
In the right-hand column of the FEDSMILL.com page we track headlines off web sites of interests to federal employees. One of them deals with FMLA case law and it recently posted an article that all union reps should read. It discusses the union’s right to see an employee’s otherwise confidential medical information filed to support a request for FMLA leave if needed to enforce the law or employee rights. This is an important decision that unions should point out to managers, arbitrators, FLRA , etc. if the union has a need for the information and it is mindlessly denied.