Posted on July 24, 2025 by AdminUN

WHEN IS MANAGEMENT’S FMLA OBLIGATION TRIGGERED?

What happens if an employee takes a lot of LWOP and AWOL to deal with a medical situation, but never asks management for FMLA leave.  In many cases, she is likely to be disciplined for abusing leave.  But there are situations where management is obligated to put her on FMLA even if she never asked.  Check out this blog from the folks at Olgetree Deakins entitled, “FMLA Notice Requirements: Lessons From the Third Circuit.” It is written to advise managers, but in doing so shines a light on how unions can use this concept to protect members.

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Posted on July 24, 2025 by AdminUN

DAVID BOREN, EX-AFGE GENERAL COUNSEL, IS BACK

It is always good to get another advocate for employees, especially one so deeply experienced as David. Gilbert Employment Law of Silver Spring Maryland just announced that he is joining their firm. David has represented employees and their unions at the federal and state level as well as in the private sector. If you need help, he is another good reason to get in touch with Gilbert Employment Law.

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Posted on July 16, 2025 by AdminUN

“OH, YOU BLACK PEOPLE”

No, that is not a quote from President Trump’s latest anti-fed employee executive order, but we can’t vouch for the drafts.  The words were uttered by a Postal Service supervisor. According to the EEOC, his exact words to an employee, Harrison, were, “You Black people think you can do what you want to do; not while I’m here….you and Sammy [another Black driver] are just the same.” The day after he said them, he effectively suspended the employee indefinitely.  Harrison filed an EEO complaint charging racial discrimination, which the Commission upheld because another supervisor testified that he overheard Harrison’s supervisor say at another time, ““Black people are a lot slower.  They don’t have the intelligence to do the job unless you tell them to do it.”  (Someone please check to see if that came from the Heritage Foundation’s Project 25 report.) The Administrative Judge ordered the agency to award… Continue reading →

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Posted on July 16, 2025 by AdminUN

WE WILL SEE A LOT MORE OF THIS THANKS TO ELON

Gregory, an employee at the U.S. Agency for Global Media applied for the vacant position of “Kurdish Senior Television Specialist.”  When he was not selected, he filed an EEO complaint alleging retaliation for having filed a previous EEO charge. That charge was filed against a supervisor who was also the Selecting Official for the vacant job.   Here is what Elon and the Doge-ettes were oblivious to.  When the agency completed its investigation, the Administrative Judge found it failed to include all the information the regulations require. So, she ordered the agency to redo the report and fill in the gaps. Continue reading →

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Posted on July 2, 2025 by AdminUN

DADS-IN-THE-21ST-CENTURY WORKPLACE QUIZ!

There is an interesting blog piece out there about the rights of Dads. It is from a law firm that leans slightly toward management’s perspective, but their analyses are thought provoking and reasonable. Check it out here.

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Posted on July 2, 2025 by AdminUN

FREE ONLINE LABOR RELATIONS  TRAINING

The FLRA staff has three online training programs coming up this month. If interested, click on the course’s link and sign up.  The course are as follows:

EVENT DATE:  July 08, 2025 –Virtual from 1:00pm until 3:30pm EASTERN TIME

EVENT DATE: July 15, 2025–Virtual from 1:00pm until 3:30pm EASTERN TIME.

Event date: July 22, 2025–Virtual from 11:00am until 4:30pm EASTERN TIME.

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Posted on July 2, 2025 by AdminUN

GRIEVANCE STRATEGY ISSUES- Part 2

Now let’s turn to the common labor agreement requirement that the grievance include “the article(s) and section(s) violated.” Again, this sounds simple and very often is, but there are important exceptions.  Continue reading →

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Posted on June 18, 2025 by AdminUN

WHAT CAN UNIONS DO ANYMORE FOR MEMBERS?

Now that Trump has declared that suddenly hundreds of thousands of feds are involved in national security work, those employees’ unions have lost the right to bargain contracts, take grievances to arbitration, and demand certain kinds of information.  Consequently, a lot of employees are probably questioning why they should bother to pay dues anymore.  Well, there are a bundle of good reasons to remain union members that The Revengernator has not taken away from employees and their unions. For example, unions can still represent employees before third party officials in the following situations: Continue reading →

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Posted on June 18, 2025 by AdminUN

ACT NOW OR ELSE

The White House is doing its best to screw over federal employees and if you want to stop it, NOW is the time to get involved politically.  Here is just a sample of the terrible things that are in the President’s Big Beautiful Bill that will make your  life miserable—not to mention destroy one of our country’s greatest assets, i.e., a neutral, professional, merit-based civil service. Union leaders can’t do much about this by themselves.  This is one of those times they need members and friends of members to call and email members of Congress to stop this.  Call the members who are blindly doing whatever the White House wants to tell them to stop and that you will work hard to defeat them if they don’t.  You might want to point out that if they allow he civil service to be destroyed, it will be their constituents that suffer poor service. Call those who realize this is all bad for the country to let them know you are behind them and will be sending a check. Get involved. Be a citizen. Continue reading →

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Posted on June 13, 2025 by AdminUN

GRIEVANCE STRATEGY OPTIONS TO CONSIDER  – Part 1

Most labor-management agreements list a few simple items that must be addressed to file a valid grievance, e.g., 1- name of the grievant, 2- agreement article and section violated, 3- date of violation, 4- brief description of the violation, 5- remedy requested, and 6- name and contact number of union rep. So, an inexperienced union rep might think it is therefore easy to draft a grievance, but the experienced rep knows that there are some serious strategy issues to decide under each of those six items.  This is the first in a six-part series that will explain what those strategic issues are. Part I deals with the Name of the Grievant. What is so complex about that you might be asking yourself?  Well, to borrow some famous words from our childhood, “Gather around and you shall hear.”  Continue reading →

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