Posted on September 12, 2012 by AdminUN

UNION BOOSTS CUBICLE PRIVACY

NTEU won a FSIP decision in early August requiring the agency (EPA, Region 7) to not only give unit employees cubicle walls that had 46 inch high solid material bases, but to also add 22 additional inches of opaque glass.  Management opposed the proposal as too costly, citing a projected cost of $176,000.  It offered only 46 inch high bases with another 11 inches of clear glass. FSIP bought the union argument that the increased privacy would likely increase productivity.

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Posted on September 12, 2012 by AdminUN

SEVERANCE PAY IS NOT SUBJECT TO FICA

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.

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Posted on September 5, 2012 by AdminUN

NEGOTIATORS BEWARE OF MOUs

A new FLRA decision (AFGE, 64 FLRA 1113)leaves all us practitioners just a little more confused about the process for terminating not just a mid-term MOU agreement, but also the practices it established. AFGE lost the protections established by 12 midterm agreements in the blink of an eye. Be careful you do not too. Continue reading →

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Posted on September 5, 2012 by AdminUN

HOW PAY REFORM SCREWED SES EMPLOYEES

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 →

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Posted on September 5, 2012 by AdminUN

WHAT IS THAT SMELL?

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 →

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Posted on August 30, 2012 by AdminUN

HOW ORGANIZED LABOR CHANGED AMERICA

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.  Continue reading →

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Posted on August 30, 2012 by AdminUN

AFGE CONSOLIDATES DOD POLICE

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 →

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Posted on August 30, 2012 by AdminUN

TAX-RELATED OVERPAYMENTS MAY BE WAIVED

Here is a new one that surprises even us. A federal agency, ironically the IRS, failed to withhold from the biweekly salary checks of its employees in Florence, KY the full income tax amount they were obligated to pay to the City of Florence. When IRS found out, it announced that the employees had received too much take home pay, which the feds call and overpayment, and that management was going to increase their city tax deductions over the amount typically due each pay period to make up for the amount it failed to withhold. Employees were upset and their union stepped in. Continue reading →

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Posted on August 28, 2012 by AdminUN

TEST YOURSELF #4- Loss of Status

Assume that a supervisor gets upset with an employee, who has long had special status in the work group, and takes all that away from her.  Up until this run-in with the supervisor, this employee was the acting manager whenever the supervisor was gone, the expert everyone was directed to when they had technical questions, trained all newcomers, given all the public speaking opportunities the group had, and was allowed to pick the most interesting cases to work on rather than have them assigned to her randomly.   What can you do for the employee if the supervisor does not downgrade her? Continue reading →

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Posted on August 28, 2012 by AdminUN

TURNING TABLES OF PENALTIES ON MANAGEMENT

Not long ago MSPB overturned an adverse action because of a mistake management made using its own table of penalties to set the penalty.  The mistake was not an obvious one.  We want to call it to your attention so you can look for it.   Continue reading →

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