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 →

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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 →

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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

Posted on March 14, 2023 by AdminUN

LACTATION QUESTION: WHAT DO YOU CALL IT WHEN…

…(a) management was unable to give an employee access to the lactation room, forcing her to go home on leave to express, (b) management let employees use the lactation room as a break area which forced a woman to wait for it to clear, and (c) another 40-minute delay was required because management was using the room for training? EEOC called it… Continue reading →

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Posted on March 14, 2023 by AdminUN

CALLING ALL UNION FMLA SPECIALISTS

A number of unions have one person designated to help members who encounter problems getting their Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) rights respected. Those representatives need all the help they can get to deal with the often complex situations members face.  Perhaps the best sources for expanding one’s understanding of what FMLA rights employees have is to stay up on the latest court developments.  The American Bar Association makes that easy to do by annually publishing an update on FMLA judicial developments.  They organize and summarize the court ruling so that even we non-lawyers can benefit from this.  You can find the latest update by clicking here.

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Posted on March 7, 2023 by AdminUN

HOW TO BEAT A “LACK OF CANDOR” DISCIPLINE CHARGE

MSPB has a long record of terminating employees not just for making outright false statements, but also for failing to volunteer information about an incident that management did not even ask for.  The former is often justified, but the latter has never impressed us as fair. So, we were very surprised to see the employee reinstated in a recent case based on the facts, but we give a “tip of the hat” to MSPB for honorably adhering to the rules of evidence over gut-level conclusions.  The case shows how union reps might be able to save an employee’s job despite the initial superficial stink of the employee’s statements and actions. Continue reading →

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Posted on March 7, 2023 by AdminUN

IRS APPLICANT GETS 11 YEARS BACK PAY, LEAVE, & A JOB

Back in 2012 IRS informed an Africa-American applicant he was conditionally selected for a vacancy and gave him a preemployment background form to complete.  When he noted that he was currently under charges for violations of the law, stating he was “falsely accused of engaging in an attempted sexual assault,” and that his trial was pending IRS withdrew his selection. Once the employee filed an EEO complaint alleging race discrimination, IRS declared that it withdrew the offer because it does not allow applicants with “open” criminal matters to enter on duty, or until case disposition information is received. Almost two years after it withdrew the job offer, all charges against Complainant were dismissed and expunged. Continue reading →

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