Posted on June 22, 2023 by AdminUN

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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Posted on June 20, 2023 by AdminUN

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 →

Posted in Bargaining Law | Tagged | 1 Comment

Posted on June 20, 2023 by AdminUN

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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Posted on June 15, 2023 by AdminUN

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 →

Posted in FLRA | Tagged | 1 Comment

Posted on June 15, 2023 by AdminUN

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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Posted on June 13, 2023 by AdminUN

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 →

Posted in Pregnancy | Tagged | 1 Comment

Posted on June 13, 2023 by AdminUN

FOUR FREE TRAINING VIDEOS

The Office of the Special Counsel (OSC) has posted several videos on its YouTube page that union reps will find helpful to understanding the larger arena of federal personnel law.  We recommend the following:

You can find the rest of the training videos on this page.

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Posted on June 8, 2023 by AdminUN

WHAT WAS FEMA LEADERSHIP THINKING?

A case just came out of FEMA that further shakes our faith in the competence of agency leaders.  When an employee got pregnant, her supervisor called her in to explain how she would now have to change how she and her husband “interacted” in the bedroom. (He was much more graphic than us.) Once she delivered and returned to work, the supervisor watched for her to leave for the nursing room and as soon as she was gone he went to her desk and commented to anyone near-by about her disappearance. Not crazy enough yet? Well, after the birth the supervisor started calling her “mom” rather than by her name. That was followed by asking the employee when she was going home to China (even though she was a USA citizen) and referring to her Chinese co-workers as “Ching-Chang” and “Dang-Lang.” Want even more crazy? The supervisor also made it clear he did not agree with deleting names of Confederate leaders from schools.  Apparently, he thought that was un-American and that that needed to be said to the minorities in the office. So, what did top management do about all this? Continue reading →

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Posted on June 8, 2023 by AdminUN

NATIONAL UNION PRESIDENT BARS STAFF FEDSMILL INFORMATION

That’s right.  We have been hit with what amounts to a “gag order.”   We have been posting  Fedsmill pieces for almost 13 years trying to make sure union reps get information that their own union might not publicize, e.g., about casess other unions win. But for the first time in those 13 years a national union is censoring any e-mail alert from Fedsmill to its national staff.  That union’s staffers will not get timely alerted to new legal precedents that their management counterparts, who read our pages, get. Moreover, by making it harder for staff to get information they use in their jobs, the change is likely a ULP if  implemented unilaterally. We are not going to reveal which union it is, although the information may seep out from other sources.  But what we will do is eliminate over a dozen of the national unions that represent federal employees to make your analysis easier. See the list below. Continue reading →

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Posted on June 5, 2023 by AdminUN

CBP DESTROYS EVIDENCE; MANAGERS TESTIFY THEY “CANNOT RECALL”

A Filipino CBP Officer in the agency’s El Paso Office applied for a job as a CBP Officer (Field Canine Enforcement Trainer) back in 2016, was rejected and filed a race discrimination charge with EEOC. When it came time to look at the selection evidence file, the agency announced it has “lost” the (1) selection panel ratings of applicants’ resumes; (2) a list compiling the selection panel data into a numerical list of scores; and (3) the application materials for applicants other than Complainant and the two selected candidates. When EEOC asked the Port Director and Assistant Port Director how they made the selection, they said they could not recall—the old Watergate defense—but did swear the complaining  employee was in the bottom half of the ranked candidates.  Apparently, fractions stuck with them longer than other kinds of memories. That left EEOC to take their word that they did the right thing.  EEOC chose not to believe them because … Continue reading →

Posted in EEO/Discrimination | Tagged | 2 Comments