Disabled employees just got a little more clout to insist on reassignment to jobs they can do. Continue reading
One of organized labor’s biggest mistakes was to turn over to the government and private attorneys enforcement of the over 30 labor laws unions worked so hard to push through Congress. As a result, tens of thousands of employees each year rely on a federal official or private attorney for help with an employment problem rather than turn to a union. Unions made themselves significantly less relevant by turning this representational work over to others, and, sadly, too many federal sector unions are going down the same self-destructive path that their private sector predecessors did. Continue reading
If your members earn the right to collect severance pay, you might want to remind the employer that it should not withhold FICA tax from the check. If they ask why, direct them to this article by the LITTLER law firm about a recent federal circuit court decision.
As we have said before, it looks like all the usual suspects (also known as the private profit-obsessed beltway consulting firms—or beltway bandits if you prefer the regional slang) are actively trying to drum up business at the cost of federal employees. They are publicly condemning the current GS salary system as an unworkable antique that they allege keeps federal employee productivity from surging to unprecedented heights. If they could link it to causing bird flu and blocking the cure for global warming they would. Aside from a vast amount of facts strongly suggesting they are wrong, it is instructive to look at how badly the SES leaders got damaged in their 1978 salary reform effort. Continue reading
That can be not just an idle question, but also the first sign that employees need union help. There is a near endless source of scents in modern offices, e.g., perfumes, paint, flooring, ink, dust, furniture fabric, soaps, food, etc., and for some employees they can cause illness or even death. Here is what unions can do about offending smells. Continue reading
Labor Day weekend is upon us and most people have little idea why America has set aside a day to remember labor–or even what unions contributed. There are many answers to that question, but we are simply going to list the legislative achievements that organized labor is solely or largely responsible for passing into law. Think about what our country would be like without them. How sad that our school system does not spend five minutes educating our children about all these rights despite the fact that most of our children will spend more time being employees in the labor market than they spend doing anything else for the rest of their lives. It makes no sense. Happy Labor Day and thanks. Read on for a list of over 30 labor laws.
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An old DOD management tactic is to not only demand lots of small units on their military bases, but also to keep them isolated from one another. It keeps them weak. AFGE just overcame serious DOD opposition to consolidating the police at Dover Air Force base with other on-base employees and even non-appropriated fund employees. This means that DOD unions can now get serious about building larger units, which inevitably improves union leadership, expertise and clout. Here is how AFGE convinced FLRA in their Dover Air Force Base case. (AFGE, 66 FLRA No. 169, (2012)) Continue reading