Posted on August 20, 2024 by AdminUN

NATIONAL UNION PRESIDENT DESERVES PRAISE

High on a very short list of things that bother me about unions is the hypocrisy of their national leaders. They demand that agency executives accept certain work protections for their employees and stand accountable for doing the right thing.  But all too often union leaders refuse to live under the same rules and standards. So, we have to call for a round of applause for the President of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) for… Continue reading →

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Posted on August 15, 2024 by AdminUN

LAW FIRM GENERATES $45 MILLION FOR CBP FEMALE EMPLOYEES

We just read that the Gilbert Employment Law (GEL) Group has racked up another huge $$$ win for CBP employees. Although federal employees can only be represented by their union if they file a contract grievance, they can turn to any law firm when they file under EEO, MSPB or similar processes. These firms often take up cases unions are not interested in or do not realize are staring them in the face. The Gilbert Group in Maryland is one of the most aggressive at enforcing these rights employees have outside their contracts.  Continue reading →

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Posted on August 13, 2024 by AdminUN

ILLEGAL TELEWORK DEALS

What do you call it when a bargaining unit employee asks her manager to allow her to telework, the manager agrees, and they work out the details of when, where, and under what conditions? “Illegal” is what we at FEDSMILL.com call it.  Continue reading →

Posted in Bargaining Law | Tagged | 2 Comments

Posted on August 13, 2024 by AdminUN

EEOC REQUIRES LGBTQIA+ HARASSMENT TRAINING FOR EVERYONE 

This is a new one for us.  Apparently, the agency supervisors allowed employees to so harass a transgender co-worker that EEOC has ordered it to train all its employees in victim’s work area on the law related to LGBTQIA+ harassment. ” The training shall address how coworkers can recognize and help prevent a hostile work environment on the bases of sex, sexual orientation and gender identity.” wrote EEOC.  Check out Edmond C., v. Frank Kendall, Sec’y, Dep’t. of the Air Force, EEOC No. 2022003336 (2023)

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Posted on July 31, 2024 by AdminUN

TWO ROOKIE MISTAKES

A recent FLRA decision opens with these three sentences, “In this case, Arbitrator Anthony R. Orman, found that the Agency violated Article 21, Section 4 of the parties’ collective-bargaining agreement by failing to distribute overtime in a “fair and equitable manner.”[ But he denied the Union’s requested backpay remedy because the Union failed to show which employees were available and would have accepted the opportunity to work the overtime.  We find that the Arbitrator’s denial of backpay is not contrary to the Back Pay Act (BPA). Continue reading →

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Posted on July 31, 2024 by AdminUN

THANKS, DIRECTOR SHRIVER

While he would have much preferred a career as a star quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles,  all us feds are far better with him scoring big changes in the human resources arena.  Rob Shriver has been acting director of OPM for only a few months now.  But, last week he finalized a regulatory change that will now permit federal employees temporarily detailed to perform higher graded work for as long as they are in the job.  All they need do is meet the minimum qualifications of the job. (More on this later)  Continue reading →

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Posted on July 24, 2024 by AdminUN

30-YEAR-OLD BACK PAY CASE

Occasionally, an agency asserts that it cannot legally grant back pay for claims more than six years old due to appropriation laws.  Given that it can take more than six years to resolve certain cases, the employees with claims going back more than six years lose money if the agency argument is accepted.  In fact, if they retired more than six years ago, they would lose all their back pay entitlement no matter if they had an otherwise legitimate right to ten, twenty, or thirty years of retroactive compensation. So, we have made it a point to let Fedsmill.com readers know that there is a bundle of cases out there where federal employees have received back pay retroactive for decades.  Our post entitled, “How Far Back Can A Back Pay Claim Go?” lists a dozen examples and there is a new one to add.  Check out the FedManager.com story entitled, “30-Year-Old Job Discrimination Lawsuit Settled by USMS.” The U.S. Marshals Service has agreed to compensate employees and former employees for violations of their rights dating back as far as 1994. Apparently, the urban legend about some appropriation laws barring payments more than six years retroactive did not bother the Marshals Service, which is part of the Dep’t. of Justice. Continue reading →

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Posted on July 24, 2024 by AdminUN

INADEQUATE AGENCY NOTICE GIVES UNION A BIG BARGAINING BONUS (PT. 2)

NEGOTIATOR ALERT!     What does it mean for the union when management gives it advance notice of a proposed change, but the notice omits some of the details?  It means a bargaining power bonus for the union. Continue reading →

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Posted on July 15, 2024 by AdminUN

BARGAINING BY THE NUMBERS TRAINING PROGRAM

Getting ready to negotiate a term contract? Or is it mid-term bargaining that lies ahead for you? With decades of experience with both as well as from both sides of the bargaining table, we have designed a training program that focuses on over 125 very concrete bargaining precedents, tactics, and tips. If you find yourself being whipped around the room during negotiations or simply not doing as well as you thought you would, it most likely will be because of one or more of these 125 are being used against you. Programs that emphasize a more subjective or high strategy approach to learning how to negotiate are not bad; but we have found those negotiators who know the hard tangible parts of negotiations do better.  If you are interested, let us know. Continue reading →

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Posted on July 12, 2024 by AdminUN

THE  INTELLECTUAL DISHONESTY OF “COVERED-BY” ADVOCATES

There is an ALJ case lingering in the FLRA decision pipeline that will once again put the “covered-by” (CB) defense up for review. (See DoD and NEA) Having watched the CB defense come into being and judicially mutate into nothing short of a near-total extermination of mid-term collective bargaining, my opinion has been that it is built atop unsupportable assertions. This becomes obvious when they are isolated and examined individually. To do so, I have focused on the reasoning of the primary, and most accomplished, CB activist, Judge Harry T. Edwards, of the D.C. Court of Appeals. Like me he spent his formative years learning about language, reasoning, sentence structure, fallacies, and syntax in a little place called Uniondale.  True story, but for another time. Hopefully, this analysis will enable unions to sharpen an attack on the concept. Continue reading →

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