QUESTION: When can an employee demand that he or she not be required to perform certain tasks? ANSWER: When performance of the work conflicts with the employee’s religious convictions and it is reasonable for the employer to accommodate the employee. Continue reading
STEWARD ALERT! Managers constantly tell probationary employees they have no appeal rights if terminated, but that is just not true. FEDSMILL.com is working on a longer article about probationary employee appeal rights, but here is a glimpse of what’s possible. Continue reading
STEWARD ALERT! When the employer is ordered to give an employee a back pay lump sum amount, it can also be required to compensate the employee for any extra income taxes if the employer’s improper action was based on illegal civil rights discrimination. This underscores why it is important to allege discrimination if there is any chance of it. Continue reading
STEWARD ALERT! We all know that union activists cannot be fired, denied a benefit, or even poorly evaluated if the decision is based on or even related to our choice to be union activist. But over the years FLRA has certified that union leaders have a few others rights that you might have forgotten about. So, FEDSMILL.com thought you a reminder of them would help along with excerpts from the precedential FLRA case. Continue reading
LEADER ALERT! Too many unions think that they should not use the grievance process to pursue employee complaints about civil rights discrimination. As a result, they refer employees with discrimination suspicions to the agency EEO officer. Those unions are making a big mistake. Continue reading
Finally, someone heard the complaints of so many local union leaders who by law must run local elections every two or three years. Those of us who have been through it know the drill: printing ballots, updating member home addresses, buying envelops & stamps, securing a mail box, assembling a committee to count ballots, securing the records, etc. Well, it looks like that is about to be history. Continue reading
Featherbedding is a widely condemned practice in labor-management circles. At best, it is wasteful; at worst, it is dishonest; and, at present, it appears that the Federal Service Impasses Panel (FSIP) is mired in it. The cost to the rest of us is that the Panel produces fewer decisions and each takes longer to issue. Continue reading
OPM Director John Berry must be filled with contempt for bilingual federal employees. Or maybe the Obama appointee is just a hand puppet being worked by others with contempt for them. Or maybe he does not believe they deserve equal rights. Otherwise, how do you explain how poorly he treats bilinguals? See if you can figure it out. Continue reading