Posted on April 11, 2023 by AdminUN

THE CARE AND FEEDING OF ARBITRATORS

If you understand how hard it is to keep goldfish thriving, then you know something about sustaining arbitrators.  They need constant care and attention throughout a case.  Ignore one tiny detail and your case ends up flushed down a toilet. For example, FLRA just issued a decision wherein an arbitrator told the union to pursue one of its claims related to an employee’s suspension with someone other than himself.  My first reaction was to call that arbitrator a wimp afraid to take on an unusual issue unique to the federal sector.  But when I read past the first few paragraphs, I realized the union failed to feed him properly. By that I mean… Continue reading →

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Posted on April 10, 2023 by AdminUN

STRIKING THE DELICATE BALANCE: RELIGION AND PRONOUNS

Unions are not going to be able to sit back and watch employers struggle with this issue.  Sooner or later an LGBTQ+ member is going to wander into the union office asking for help with co-workers who refuse to use the pronouns they prefer. Then a few minutes after they leave those same co-workers will come in asking for union help getting a religious accommodation that relieves them of having to be pronoun conscious. Seconds after they leave and just as you are reaching for a fist-full of aspirins the HR manager will call to tell you that he is not yet sure who he is going to be disciplined, but someone is getting it in the neck with this religion-pronoun battle in Group 6 if the union does not calm everyone down pronto. Continue reading →

Posted in Religion, Transgender | Tagged | 2 Comments

Posted on April 4, 2023 by AdminUN

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TO CONDUCT JOB INTERVIEWS

Like it or not, an Artificial Intelligence (AI) tsunami is only slightly off-shore and certain to roar through our lives shortly sweeping away so many of our traditions.  One of them is the job interview where we sit in front a three or so folks who pepper us with questions and try to peer into our souls, culminating in a score or ranking that all too often is as much a work of fiction as a Stephen King novel. Check out this recent Washington Post story about how AI will soon take over the job interviewing function. Those unions whose members place a lot of importance on getting promoted or otherwise selected for something had best start thinking about what protections and improvements they want to demand at the bargaining table. We can think of about a dozen, but near the top of the list would be a study that compares the results of the first 100 or so AI interviews to the 100 done just prior to AI’s arrival.

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Posted on April 4, 2023 by AdminUN

UNIONS ARE MISSING OUT ON INTERIM TERMINATION RELIEF

When a union takes an employee’s removal case to arbitration and wins, the agency typically will not reinstate the employee if it decides to file an appeal with the Federal Circuit court. If it does appeal, the employee sits home another 9 to 12 months without an income waiting for the court to decide what to do.  But if s/he won reinstatement from MSPB, the agency would have to pay the employee salary and benefits beginning the day after the decision is issued by the MSPB Administrative Judge even if the agency files a court appeal. This does not sound fair, and unions should move to correct it. Continue reading →

Posted in Discipline/Adverse Action, Remedies | Tagged | Leave a comment

Posted on March 28, 2023 by AdminUN

YODA, KING SOLOMON & ARBITRATORS

In my experience, most arbitrators see themselves as the fruit of a mythical, time-travel-assisted coupling of Yoda and the infamous baby-splitting King Solomon.  Their wisdom and power are, therefore, boundless.  Yet, they do not seem capable of lifting a  light saber, much less a circa 950 BC bronze one, to help themselves when their profession is threatened with extinction. During the last White House Administration, the President installed two political operatives at FLRA who focused their party’s political revenge efforts primarily on making arbitration useless for unionized federal employees. They did so by overturning over 100 arbitration decisions thereby voiding millions in employee back pay entitlements. They got away with it because in 99% of the cases they had the final word and there was nothing a federal court could do. Yet, as far as I can tell not one arbitrator, and certainly not any of their associations, tried to push back on this planned effort to neuter arbitrators and arbitration. Continue reading →

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Posted on March 28, 2023 by AdminUN

WHEN DINOSAURS DECIDE FULL-TIME TELEWORK REQUESTS

With our apologies to the dinosaur community, we have to say we immediately thought of the stereotypical behemoths when we read about an agency official who decided that “telework was not an entitlement” and categorically forbade “supervisors, military, and administrative personnel and anyone on alternate work schedules from participating in regular and recurring telework.” We especially focused on the last phrase which penalized employees by denying them one benefit Congress and the President have endorsed because they took advantage of another benefit Congress and the President endorsed. Fortunately, this modern-day dino ran into his own personal meteorite compliments of EEOC. Continue reading →

Posted in Reasonable Accommodations | Leave a comment

Posted on March 23, 2023 by AdminUN

WHITE HOUSE LISTS CHANGES IT’S SEEKING IN FEDERAL EMPLOYEE BENEFITS

Fedweek.com posted a very readable piece about how the Biden White House wants to improve federal employee benefits. Thought you might be interested.  Click here to leap to their article.

Posted in Compensation | Tagged | Leave a comment

Posted on March 21, 2023 by AdminUN

AGENCY’S PRE-SELECTION SCAMMERS SNARED

I am sure union reps have seen these same facts hundreds of times in their own agencies.  Management announced a promotion opportunity, and after it passed over the person EEOC ultimately declared to be “vastly superior” to the selectee the record showed the following: Continue reading →

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Posted on March 21, 2023 by AdminUN

“INTERIM RELIEF” MEANS MONEY

A VA employee was fired from his job, appealed to MSPB, and the Administrative Judge ordered that he be granted “interim relief.” That is what the Board calls it when the agency is ordered to put the employee back on the job while it decides whether to appeal the decision to the full Board and courts. The reinstatement is not final until the agency loses the appeal or chooses not to timely appeal. However, in this case the agency decided the employee was “unable to work” and placed him on leave without pay rather than compensate him while the appeal was pending. That is not an outrageously unfair decision; it is just the wrong decision under the law. Continue reading →

Posted in Discipline/Adverse Action | Tagged | Leave a comment

Posted on March 16, 2023 by AdminUN

SHOULD I RUN FOR NATIONAL UNION PRESIDENT?

The current president of one of the major federal employee unions has just announced he is not going to run for another term. That has probably set off a firestorm of interest among the union’s local leaders and staff about whether they run for office. So, I have started thinking about what a union needs in a national president. Here is my take. Continue reading →

Posted in Union Politics | Tagged | 2 Comments