Posted on January 23, 2024 by AdminUN

RETURNING TO A WORKABLE 7116(d) FORUM SELECTION ANALYSIS

Among the precedents the two Trump FLRA appointees destroyed was the Authority’s decades-long approach to objectively deciding whether a union can take “two bites at the apple.” This post is about how to get that reversed. The FLRA and courts have held for decades that the union could not use both the FLRA ULP and contract grievance processes to challenge an incident if (1) the ULP charge arose from the same set of factual circumstances as the grievance and (2) the theories advanced in support of both the ULP charge and grievance are substantially similar. The second element of that two-part analysis is reasonably objective. For example, if a union grieves a violation of a contract obligation to distribute overtime equitably and then files a ULP with FLRA charging the agency with unilaterally implementing a change in how it distributes overtime, those are different theories—and therefore previously permissible.  It was only where the grievance and ULP both claimed a statutory violation that the union violated 5 USC 7116(d). Continue reading →

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Posted on January 16, 2024 by AdminUN

GOOD NEWS ABOUT DOUGLAS FACTORS 6 & 10

Homeland Security fired a Deportation Officer because he traveled home from an assignment in Chile a day earlier than scheduled and spent the day with his family.  DHS also cited the fact that he falsified some travel and overtime documents. AFGE took the case to arbitration only to lose.  The case then was appealed to the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals where the court criticized the arbitrator for not thoroughly examining these two Douglas factors.  The case should help unions demand more thorough and legitimate consideration of Douglas Factors by agency deciding officials and arbitrators. You can read the decision yourself at Torres v DHS, Fed. Cir. No. 22-2003 (2023), but here is our brief take on why it is valuable. Continue reading →

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Posted on January 16, 2024 by AdminUN

SOLIDARITY FOREVER? MY TUCKUS!!!

“Solidarity forever” is one of the great labor songs. It praises unions for uniting all their members together as equals—the ultimate democracies and the polar opposite of top-down corporate control systems. It is also a PR scam.  Why? Because the typical union works very hard to keep members divided, marginalized and out of the information loop.  It is not hard to do or to miss it being done to you.  For example, …  Continue reading →

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Posted on January 8, 2024 by AdminUN

IT IS “FOLLOW THE UNION MONEY” TIME AGAIN

Want to know how your union is spending dues money, e.g., who is getting paid what, which outside contractors have been hired, how often the union went to arbitration last year, etc.? Well, as of December 31st each year union whose fiscal year ends in October—and most do, file reports with the Dep’t. of Labor detailing all that. And all those reports are available to you on the web.  Here is how to access your union’s report or any other unions. Continue reading →

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Posted on January 8, 2024 by AdminUN

WHAT SHOULD A UNION’S INTERNAL DISCIPLINE PROCESS LOOK LIKE?

Union leaders as well as members are equally capable of violating the law, regulation or even their own union constitution. Consequently, all unions have a process outlined in their constitution and bylaws for filing a charge against a member or leader. The law specifies that the process must provide for the accused to be served written specific charges, a reasonable time to prepare A defense, and a full and fair hearing. But there are a half-dozen other issues union leaders, from the local to the national, should focus on. First, … Continue reading →

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Posted on January 4, 2024 by AdminUN

JOAN, ETHEL, FEDSMILL AND TEMPORARY PROMOTION BACK PAY

Almost 18 months ago, on July 29, 2022, we spelled out why OPM was wrong to prohibit paying  employees detailed or otherwise assigned to higher graded work for more than 120 days a year. In fact, we suggested it bordered on wage theft. In that July post we also virtually begged unions to get behind our argument and after a few days of no action some did. We know that our post was also passed around at OPM as soon as it came out. Well, as we predicted, OPM had no choice but to change its regulations once the arguments we outlined were officially put forth by unions. A Gov Exec article explains the looming changes, but the bottom line is employees may be entitled to big chunks of back pay if they act now. For example, … Continue reading →

Posted in Back Pay, Higher Graded Details | Tagged | 2 Comments

Posted on January 4, 2024 by AdminUN

UNION WIN OF THE CENTURY?

For years now, there have been about 4,000 employees at the National Institute of Health (NIH) just outside Washington, DC who have been eager to organize a union.  Their colleagues at the Food and Drug Administration did years decades ago as did almost every other piece of Health and Human Services.  So, the NIH folks knew what they had to do.  They needed a union that understood how to represent professional federal employees because virtually all of those 4,000 NIH employees are advance degree scientists.  They needed a union that knew its way around the federal sector labor relations maze, which is very different from the private sector. And they needed a union known for giving members a very large democratic role in deciding things important to them, not just to the national leaders. Having worked at a university for years, I know how absolutely abhorrent “top-down” control is to scientists and academics. The NIH employees chose the United Auto Workers (UAW), which best we can tell has no federal sector experience nor other federal units. But they are known for letting members self-determine their fate and they represent grad students at several universities around the country.  This is an organizing coup for the UAW and we wish them only the best.

Posted in Organizing | Tagged | 1 Comment

Posted on December 18, 2023 by AdminUN

ARRRRRRGH, SHAPE UP, FLRA! YOU JUST ALLOWED FED SECTOR SEX SLAVERY 

Earlier this month, FLRA upheld an arbitrator’s ruling that the union loses the right to file a grievance over a continuing violation of a contract, regulation, or law when it waits more the negotiated number of days for filing a grievance, e.g., 14,  from the date the union first knew about the violation. Consequently, it could never file a grievance over that violation ever again in the history of time—and beyond. Sounds absurd?  It is and FLRA should be ashamed of its anti-employee shortsightedness on this matter.  Here is why FLRA is sooooooo wrong. Continue reading →

Posted in Grievance/Arbitration | Tagged | 2 Comments

Posted on December 18, 2023 by AdminUN

FILE THESE GRIEVANCES NOW

The Supreme Court is considering whether an employee can file an EEO charge when an employer merely reassigns the employee to significantly less desirable work—without a reduction is pay. To date, most courts have required that the employee suffer more tangible harm than a mere reassignment to have a legitimate discrimination claim, e.g., suffered a salary demotion, lost out on a promotion, assigned less desirable hours, etc. Many of the media pundits who follow the Court’s recent public arguments felt the Justices showed a lot of sympathy for broadening that standard. Consequently, it occurred to us that employees who suffered any action they felt damaging in the last six months would be wise to file a grievance or EEO charge now.  If they wait for the Court’s decision in the spring, it might be too late for them.  Check out the NY Times story entitled, “Supreme Court Analyzes Discrimination Law in Job Transfer Case” for more details the new kind of harm the court is considering, e.g., moving from a fixed to rotating shift with weekend duties, being ordered back into uniform after plain clothes duty, losing overtime opportunities. Get the word out to your stewards and members that they should talk to the union if they recently suffered similar harm due to a discriminatory motive.

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Posted on December 12, 2023 by AdminUN

WHAT A UNION THAT AFGE IS

This past summer we posted a few articles about how hypocritical it is for a national union officer to fire any employee for other than just cause (or something like it) and without appeal rights. Sadly, we failed to mention that AFGE’s Constitution actually does not allow such arbitrary terminations.  It states in Article IX that, ”The National President may discharge employees other than elected officers only for just cause. If a discharged employee is covered by a collective bargaining agreement or contract, he or she shall have such grievance rights as are provided in that agreement. The NEC shall establish a grievance procedure for all other full-time employees not covered by contract.” AFGE’s protection of even those who have left the bargaining unit or are otherwise not in it is something all unions should copy. Hats off to AFGE for being union to the core rather than adopting the practices of or profit business leaders who often thrive on exterminating vulnerable employees no matter how long their service to the organization. We love it when a union sticks to core collective bargaining values for all its employees.

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