Posted on April 4, 2012 by AdminUN

IS CBP FUNDING NTEU?

No, at least not directly.  FLRA recently dismissed yet another Customs and Border Protection exception to an arbitration decision.  (NTEU 66 FLRA 556) No news there.  But this is another in a long line of cases where the agency LR leaders opposed giving the union attorney fees–and lost.  By our estimate, this case will cost CBP about $75,000 in attorney fees given the high-priced legal talent at NTEU and how long LR managers dragged it out.   All that money goes into funding more NTEU litigation. Continue reading →

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Posted on March 27, 2012 by AdminUN

FUBAR: GSA’S TOWER OF BABEL

According to the Bible, when God saw all the people of earth uniting under one language and how powerful that would make them, God spoke these words, “let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.” (Genesis, 11-7)  None of us FEDSMILL.com scribes can figure out why the Almighty wanted to screw up the good thing those folks had going, but we are quite sure that the GSA folks who write the Federal Travel Regs (FTRs) live to confound those of us working hard to build something. Continue reading →

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Posted on March 27, 2012 by AdminUN

THE EMPLOYEE AS BOUNTY HUNTER

Did you know that if you turn in someone who is making false claims against the federal government you can get 15 to 25% of whatever the government recovers? For example, suppose you are aware that a private vendor is submitting false claims for payment and that those payments amount to over $100,000. Continue reading →

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Posted on March 27, 2012 by AdminUN

DEMANDING TOO MUCH EDUCATION

EEOC recently put employers on notice that they may violate the law if they demand more education to compete for a job than is actually required to be successful. Here is their reasoning. Continue reading →

Posted in Disability, EEO/Discrimination, Promotion/Hiring | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Posted on March 27, 2012 by AdminUN

WATERBOARDING SELECTION OFFICIALS II

Not long ago we posted an article about how frustrating it is when selecting officials will not give a best qualified candidate a substantive reason why he/she was passed over for promotion, especially when someone with a lower promotion score was selected. Although we did not advocate waterboarding the answer out of the selecting official, we expressed our understanding of those who dream about doing precisely that when told such things as he was “not sufficiently suited” for the job or that he “did not interview well.” In our original post we cited to three federal court decisions employees could cite as precedent for demanding a “clear and reasonably specific factual basis” for the decision. Now we have more cases to work with. Continue reading →

Posted in EEO/Discrimination, Promotion/Hiring | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Posted on March 19, 2012 by AdminUN

FUBAR: MSPB’S HALF-PREGNANT EMPLOYEE

There is a reason why this is the first article you have ever read about a half-pregnant employee. It is the same reason you have not come across stories about the half-dead. Pregnancy and death are absolutes; you either are or you are not. We would have said the same about truth; something is either true or false. However, MSPB now recognizes “truth with elements of deception.”   It is not quite a falsification, but it can get an employee fired. Continue reading →

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Posted on March 19, 2012 by AdminUN

$300,000 FOR A DENIED REASSIGNMENT

Employees almost never have the right to demand a reassignment to a different supervisor, job or location.  But if the employee has a disabling condition for which a reassignment would be a reasonable accommodation, the employee may have a legally enforceable right to the reassignment.  Here’s how. Continue reading →

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Posted on March 19, 2012 by AdminUN

ZIP IT! – WHEN MANAGERS VIOLATE YOUR PRIVACY       

This is not the first time we have written about managers who either can’t keep their mouth shut or their documents clean.  The newest example is the Chief of Dental Services who just cost a VA hospital over $8,500 by ignoring an employee’s right to medical privacy. Continue reading →

Posted in Disability, Medical Issues, Privacy, Remedies | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Posted on March 16, 2012 by AdminUN

THREE BENCHMARK CONTRACTS JUST COMPLETED

AFGE, NTEU, and NATCA all announced settlements for their major contracts in the last ten days.  AFGE has wrapped up the core of the SSA contract; NTEU has concluded mid-term reopener revisions to its IRS contract, and NATCA just revealed that it has a deal with FAA.  This is a big deal.  Each is considered to be among those dozen or so contracts that set the pace for the rest of the federal sector.  FEDSMILL.com will post them as soon as we get our hands on them and share details as they start to dribble out.

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Posted on March 15, 2012 by AdminUN

SSA’s $8,987 ONE-PERSON SPACE HEATER

How did the Social Security Administration turn the cost of a hundred-dollar personal space heater for one employee into something nearly 90 times as expensive? Continue reading →

Posted in EEO/Disabilities, EEO/Remedies | Tagged , , | Leave a comment