THERE IS SOMETHING ROTTEN AT DODEA

I once worked at the DoD Education Activity (DODEA) as a management official and to this day have enormous respect for its top leader’s integrity and values. But between the EEOC decision covered in this post and the post immediately below, it looks like it is time for an agency-wide DoDEA stand down to focus on civil rights. This is not how those who teach the children of military members around the world should be treated. Continue reading

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YOU’RE PROTECTED WHEN YOU JUST SPEAK UP FOR A DISCRIMINATION VICTIM

Iris, is an employee at DoD’s Education Activity (DoDEA) which manages its elementary and high schools around the world. In fact, she was a school principal.  When she raised issues of racial mistreatment of a co-worker to her manager, that manager directed Iris to request a transfer.  Iris believed her supervisor’s order was in retaliation/reprisal for her opposition to the discrimination against a co-worker, and filed a complaint. Here’s is what happened, but . . . Continue reading

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THE ACTRESS JOAN CRAWFORD ON PROGRESSIVE DISCIPLINE

The next time some top manager proposes termination rather than uses progressive discipline on an employee think about showing the oral reply official the wire hanger scene from Joan Crawford’s Mommy Dearest film. It is a spot-on visual description of precisely what the CEO-as-executioner is doing. If you have seen the film, you will remember a wild-eyed Joan rampaging and ranting through her house destroying thousands of dollars because her child violated one of Joan’s peccadilloes, i.e., she used wire rather than wooden clothes hangers. Obviously, in Joan’s world what she wants is not only more important than anything else, but deserves termination with extreme prejudice, the guillotine, the full Vlad-The-Impaler package, etc. if slighted. Given the harm “termination without previous discipline” does to the employee, their family and sadly at times our communities, this CEO preference for extermination is more than the executive’s ego or even hubris.  It is far closer to a megalomania, i.e., a delusional obsession with self-importance. Continue reading

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IS THIS DISCRIMINATION? WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

Assume that a CEO of some organization decides that he no longer wants a minority woman, who held a supervisory position, on his staff.  She has somehow upset him.  Consequently, he has her marched out the door one day without any severance pay–despite more than a decade of service–to the organization. So far, the CEO has done nothing illegal, but what if when the organization terminated five previous White men from the staff they got thousands in severance pay and/or months of notice to find a new job.  Continue reading

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THE AGONY OF TERMINATION, NEPO BABIES AND PAYING IT FORWARD

During my career as a union rep, I defended more than a handful of feds who were terminated by their agency. While I could talk about them, I want to focus on one person who I did not represent, but who came to me for help. If you remember the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO), you probably remember how an illegal 1981 strike against the FAA their leaders took them on resulted in the biggest catastrophe in American labor history.  They never got the fat raises FAA was offering them, 13,000 controllers (mainly veterans) lost their jobs, the strikers were barred from working anywhere else in government, and President Reagan’s successful crushing of that union encouraged  private sector employers to crush their own unions. It made the labor’s 1914 Ludlow Massacre seem like a mere paper cut.  I want to talk about one of the PATCO union leaders who lost his job. Continue reading

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IMPORTANT FLRA “SCOPE OF PROPOSALS” DECISION

Last month, FLRA decided a POPA case that all negotiators should read closely. (66 FLRA 247)  Management made a mid-term proposal to change one part of a performance awards program and the union responded with proposals addressing the full range of award program issues.  Management answered by stating that most of the union’s proposals were outside the “scope” of its change and therefore management was not obligated to bargain over them. When POPA refused to limit the bargaining to just management’s change, management unilaterally implemented the change and the union filed a ULP grievance challenging that. Continue reading

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HOW UNIONS CAN TAKE TWO BITES OF THE APPLE

There has been a lot of litigation over situations where a union has filed a ULP charge with FLRA over an issue and soon thereafter filed a grievance over the same issue.  Most of the disputes have focused on what constitutes or defines an “issue” as that word is used in Section 7116(d) of the statute.  It prohibits taking the same issue to the two different forums. Thanks to some deeply muddled and malicious thinking by Jim Abbott and Colleen Kiko-Duffy that question of the law is a mess for practitioners—but great for political appointees with a personal agenda. However, a new FLRA decision reminds us how unions can avoid the litigation “issue” trap to challenge an agency personnel action before FLRA and through the grievance procedure simultaneously. Continue reading

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ALL PRACTITIONERS OWE CHAIRMAN DUBESTER A HUGE THANKS

Ernest Dubester’s term as FLRA Chair ended earlier this year without much fan fair – and we are stunned. There is little doubt that he was one of the three most important appointees to FLRA ever. Here is why? Continue reading

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HAS JIM ABBOTT LOST HIS MIND?

The last we heard of Jim he was being booted off the FLRA after serving without any distinction and with considerable dishonor as President Trump’s guy on the Authority.  That was months ago, and we have been wondering what he was up to when a friend steered us to a recent Reuters article about Jim’s legal troubles. It seems that Jim does not believe he is required to follow the law–something that appears to be going around in his circle of political allies. Consequently, after ignoring repeated federal warnings to comply, the Justice Department has sued him in federal court to force compliance and asked the court to fine him over $71,000. So, here is why we think he lost his mind. Continue reading

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GEL REPRESENTS CBP OFFICERS & AG SPECIALISTS IN PREGNANCY EEO CLASS ACTION

While it may take a village to raise a child, it often takes a community of aggressive and skilled advocates to represent federal employees.  What one does not or refuses to see, another understands instantly and acts with vision. That is what is happening at Customs and Border Protection where the high-profile Gilbert Employment Law firm in DC has stepped up to help some abused CBP employees.  Continue reading

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