All employees do not have equal legal rights. Union representatives have far more rights than most. In fact, they have far more rights than the average manager. So, if you hear anyone asking the question, “What Can the Union Do for Me?” here is just a short list of the powers a union rep can put to work for employees the minute a union is certified in an election. We strongly urge local union leaders to copy this article and share it with the entire unit so that those who are not yet paying dues see what they may be missing out on if they ask the union for help. Continue reading
I love standing around, preferably in a bar, listening to a couple of well-respected, high-class union lawyers talk about a problem employees are having. More than a few times in my career it has caused me to silently ask myself, “Well, why not try this?” I had one of those moments last week in the mid-tavern discussion. Thanks to some political operatives at OPM a federal manager can order a GS-7 employee to do GS-9, 11, 12 or even higher-level work and never pay the employee more than the GS-7 salary. That could go on for months, years or decades and all the current case law permits a fed to do about it is to get paid at the higher rate for no more than 120 days out of every 365. Even then, only those feds under a collective bargaining agreement that mandated payment would get it. But then I had a thought. Continue reading
We can’t think of the last time we agreed with an employment law decision out of the 5th Circuit Federal Court of Appeals in Louisiana. Indeed, we often wonder whether it is still angry over the Emancipation Proclamation, giving women the right to vote, and virtually all statutory employee rights. We were reminded of its anti-employee, knuckle-dragging approach to the law when we read its most recent employee-rights proclamation. It seems the employee suffers from a disability that causes her to sleepwalk. So, one night while off-site at a training conference, she got up, left her room, walked to a co-worker’s room, knocked, was let in, and promptly got into his bed. The room’s occupant called security and got her safely back to her own room. Everyone agreed she was sleepwalking and that was due to a disability. Consequently, when her employer fired her, she filed suit claiming disability discrimination. It seemed like a slam-dunk win for her, e.g., no dispute she is disabled or that it caused the sleepwalking, it occurred outside duty hours, no one was harmed, etc. But the good old boys and gals at the 5th Circuit, still reliving the pre-Civil War glory days and led by the Bible-slinging Supreme Court Justice Alito, upheld her termination by… Continue reading
Thanks to the managements’ rights provision of the labor law federal selecting officials foolishly think they have something akin to Papal infallibility when they rule as to who should be selected for promotion. Afterall, the law says that employees cannot grieve a selecting official’s decision so long as s/he is working off a properly rated and ranked best qualified list. But what is not said is that you can challenge the selection if the official violated law or government-wide regulation despite the BQ list being properly ranked and certified. And given how reckless many selecting officials are unions should rarely pass up the opportunity to do so—as a new EEOC decision out of SSA shows. That selecting official passed over a candidate eligible for selection to choose two other employees who were members of a different race and gender. BINGO! GOTCHA! GAME OVER! I’M BUYING! Here is why. Continue reading
We want to pass along a very thoughtful piece from the folks at FMLA INSIGHTS that attempts to answer that. Click here for a link.
An agency suspended a firefighter for 30 days who tested positive for illegal drugs after being selected in a random test. Because the employee was absolutely convinced that he had not used drugs, he tried to prove that the urine sample produced a false positive and/or that his sample had become mixed up with another employee’s. Consequently, along with his written reply he provided the result of a private test he had done of his hair that showed he had not used drugs at any recent time. He also asked the agency for a portion of the urine it tested so that he could have a private DNA test run on it. The agency refused to release any of the urine citing HHS rules that prohibit DNA testing on urine samples collected for drug testing. So, that left it up to the judge and MSPB itself to decide what to do. Continue reading
One of the reasons we activated Fedsmill was to overcome the disadvantage regional and local union leaders are at when they have no way to hear about case victories from other unions. That hobbles them and it can be terminal for the employee whose career hangs in the balance. For example, when an employee in a Florida VA cemetery was AWOL 21 times over a 100-day period the agency suspended him for 14 days. (The employee also had a zero balance of annual, sick, and FMLA leave during those 100 days.) When the case got to arbitration, … Continue reading
CBP reassigned an employee from the Bahamas to Houston. Trying to be extra careful about the costs of the move the employee inquired whether he could be reimbursed if he shipped his POV himself. In response, CBP explained that he could arrange for his own shipping, but he would only be reimbursed up to the amount that the Government would have incurred, estimated to be $9652.05, and only for allowable expenses. Then, after the employee incurred the costs, SURPRISE!!! CBP refused to pay a dime of that $9,652.05 claiming that it was wrong when it originally advised him that he would be reimbursed. Here are the details and some advice about what to do if you or a co-worker is also victimized by bad advice from an agency. Continue reading