What does it say about an agency when it takes months or even years after it becomes aware of an employee’s misconduct to discipline the employee? We think it suggests a serious mental illness among the agency leaders, perhaps Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD). FLRA thinks it is grounds for mitigating the discipline and ordering back pay. Continue reading
Although we have not seen any federal sector cases where management objects to what the employee does while on FMLA leave, the issue seems to be heating up in the private sector. The FairMeasures.com web site posted an interesting story about the issue entitled, “What Am I Allowed to Do While On FMLA?”
The Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) announced recently that its web-based Comprehensive Arbitration Training is now available on-line. The training is yet another example of the FLRA’s ongoing efforts to better serve the labor-management community, providing members with current, useful tools to support them in addressing workplace matters.
FLRA just added some clarity to the issue of when are employees entitled to back pay. In NTEU, 66 FLRA 1024 the employee had been denied the right to work overtime because there was a pending investigation of his conduct. There was no dispute about his performance, just conduct and just one incident. This was a very big deal because the employee was in a job where employees could and regularly did earn up to $35,000 a year in overtime. Continue reading
If the average federal employee only knew how vulnerable he/she is to being fired for performance-based reasons, employee pharmaceutical bills would double. Management can unilaterally set the performance standards, need only produce some evidence that the employee failed to meet one of them, and choose the penalty with virtually no second-guessing by MSPB or the courts. That’s why a recent AFGE victory is very good news, whether grieving a low performance appraisal or defending against a proposed removal for unacceptable performance. Continue reading
This is not about the federal sector, but it is a story about employee relations and employment law that should be told and retold as often as possible. EEOC just announced that it caught a private sector employer, Henry’s Turkey Service, paying some of its employees only $65. a month. Although the evidence showed that the employees performed at the same level as other employees doing the same work for $11. an hour, management apparently believed it could pay them far less because they were mentally impaired disabled workers. (The job was to hand-gut dead turkeys.) Continue reading
Normally, we oppose term limits for elected union officers. If the leader is doing a good job in the eyes of the membership, let them decide via elections whether to return him/her to office—no matter how long the leader has held the job. But, there is one big exception. Continue reading
This has almost nothing to do with federal sector labor relations; it is merely about social justice. At a time when a record number of Americans are living in poverty, isn’t it comforting to know that the absurdly wealthy, multi-millionaire CEOs are getting raises? In fact, their raises averaged 5% for the year. Check it out if you do not believe us. What makes this particularly exciting is to know that this is the group that demanded the President show more fiscal restraint with federal employees by freezing their pay. NO wonder they do everything possible to crush unions.