Posted on April 18, 2022 by AdminUN

MANAGERS SAY THE DARNDEST UNTRUE THINGS UNDER OATH

Bargaining unit employees can be fired, and even criminally prosecuted, for making a false statement on a federal document or under oath. So, it always amazes us that once the employees move into management too many feel free to make up the most unbelievable things. For example, take a recent case out of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which you would think places a very high value on being truthful.  A supervisor submitted all the paperwork to have one of her employees upgraded from a GS-12 spot to a GS-14. She did that because the employee was doing the GS-14 work already and her co-workers all had GS-14 jobs. But then for over a year the higher-level managers and HR folks sat on the request until the first line manager retired and they could kill the request permanently. Apparently unaware employees could file or even win EEOC discrimination cases involving classification matters, the managers got on the witness stand at EEOC and demonstrated that when they speak under oath no one should expect them to be telling the truth. For example, … Continue reading →

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Posted on April 18, 2022 by AdminUN

TERMINATION FOR VOLUNTEERING REVERSED

A law enforcement employee was asked to volunteer to attend a multi-week, off-site training program.  Being the agreeable type, he volunteered.  Somewhere during the training, which involved significant physical activity, he broke two ribs.  Nonetheless, he once again volunteered to go on rather than take sick leave or workers comp. In the end, however, he failed the course.  When he got back to the office, he was notified that the agency was terminating him for a failure to perform—and out the door he went. All this happened back in 2014. He appealed to MSPB, but you might remember that President Trump shut down MSPB given that it was the only agency with the power to punish any Hatch Act violations his White House staff might commit. That worked perfectly for his staff protecting a half-dozen of them from prosecution, but it stranded this law enforcement officer for more than 7 years. However, … Continue reading →

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Posted on April 13, 2022 by AdminUN

WANT TO KNOW WHAT IS HAPPENING IN CBP?

FEDSMILL.com reports on CBP-related cases coming out of the FLRA, FSIP, EEOC, CBCA, MSPB, OSC and a handful of other agencies.  We do not care if the case was won by a union, private attorney or an employee representing herself. Our goal is to make sure that union reps are given the widest possible view of what can be done for their members.  Listed below are ten of our favorite CBP stories out of the more than 60 we have posted. If you already subscribe to FEDSMILL.com, then recommend to a fellow CBP union activist that they subscribe also. All they need do is send an email to fedsmill@gmail.com asking to be put on our mailing list—which we never share with anyone or otherwise use for profit.

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Posted on April 12, 2022 by AdminUN

HOW FLRA SPECTACULARLY BOTCHED A CASE

This was not a common case, but neither was it so unusual as to justify a wall-to-wall brain fry at FLRA. Here are the facts of DoDEA and ACEA, 72 FLRA 720 (2022). 1- FSIP issued a term bargaining decision that the agency refused to send forward for agency head review or implement because it believe four imposed provisions violated law; 2- the union filed a ULP which resulted in the FLRA ruling that because one of the four protested provisions was illegal it had no need to address the other protested provisions and that the parties must return to the bargaining table to complete negotiations over all four disputed proposals, 3- on a union appeal to the federal circuit court the court said it was unpersuaded that the clause FLRA said was non-negotiable was illegal and returned the case to FLRA for further action, e.g., to issue a revised decision, and 4- upon receipt of the case from the court FLRA punted saying it was returning the entire the case to the parties without further decision. If you are asking yourself why the FLRA never addressed the other three FSIP-imposed provisions so that the parties knew whether they were negotiable or not when they returned to the table, so are we. Here’s why that was really foolish. Continue reading →

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Posted on April 12, 2022 by AdminUN

HOW THE AMAZON WORKERS BEAT THE UNION BUSTERS

Given that any good a union can do for its members depends on them first organizing and voting in a union, it is vital for union supporters to stay up with the latest ways to win organizing campaigns. We have been collecting stories that include things the union and employees did to beat the management union busters.  Up to now our favorite has been one that described how the organizers targeted each distinct racial group in the work force differently.  For example a NY Times article noted that “to reach African immigrant workers, it brought in food from a local African caterer.” But our new favorite article is entitled, “How Amazon Workers Beat the Union Busters At Their Own Game.”  We recommend it to anyone thinking of organizing a group of employees or even trying to revitalize one of those union locals where less than 10% of the employees pay dues.

Posted in Membership Building, Organizing | Tagged | Leave a comment

Posted on April 4, 2022 by AdminUN

WHY NEGOTIATE OVER MIDTERM AGENCY CHANGES?

Some unions are very aggressive about demanding to bargain over every management-proposed midterm change while others act like these changes are not worth their time—and we never understood the latter group.  Those unions are missing out on numerous employee and union benefits that come with an aggressive mid-term bargaining program.  So, we thought we would take a minute to highlight what those benefits are.  Maybe this will convince some readers to change the way their own union operates. Check out our post entitled “How to Lose Millions for Members” if you doubt us about an unaggressive union losing millions for members. Continue reading →

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Posted on April 4, 2022 by AdminUN

HOW TO FIND EEOC DECISIONS

EEOC has redesigned its home page with the result that it is a little more difficult for federal employees to find copies of its decisions.  So, we thought we would save you a few minutes hunting by pointing out that you can find them here.  You might want to bookmark this site for the future.

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Posted on March 27, 2022 by AdminUN

EEOC ALLOWS GAY NASA EMPLOYEE TO REASSIGN HIS SUPERVISOR

We pay NASA employees to keep their head in the clouds—in a good way, but how could they have missed that it is against the law to discriminate against gay employees? Standing too close to the rocket fuel fumes? In any event, when a high-level administrator was found to have discriminated against a gay employee, EEOC ordered that the employee be allowed to determine whether the administrator stayed in the same chain of command as he or had to move to a different part of the organization.  Here is how they put their order, followed by a list of the things the administrator did to earn this very unusual penalty. Continue reading →

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Posted on March 18, 2022 by AdminUN

WHEN UNCLE SAM WILL PAY FOR A CAR WASH

Almost never, but there is an exception that was just certified for the Civilian Board for Contract Appeals (CBCA).  That board handles travel voucher disputes for federal employees who cannot grieve and arbitrate the issue. In the recent case of Glenn F., CBCA 7227TRAV (11/24/21) the Board reversed an agency decision not to reimburse an employee the cost of washing his rental car.  The Board reasoned that the claimant’s cost for washing his rental car is allowable because he was restoring the car to its condition when he first rented it, and his action avoided additional charges from the rental car company if he returned it dirty.  While we would not label this a huge win for workers, every little bit helps.

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Posted on March 7, 2022 by AdminUN

HOW TO VERIFY MANAGERS HAVE BEEN DISCIPLINED

Every time EEOC finds a manager discriminated against an employee it orders the agency to “consider” disciplining the manager.  It does not appear to have the power to order discipline no matter how egregious the violations of an employee’s civil rights. Only the Special Counsel and MSPB have that power. However, someone must ask them to do so before they can. Ideally, that would be the employee’s union. A 2019 FLRA decision gives unions a way to find out what, if any, disciplinary action the agency took voluntarily and to assemble the information needed to put a case before the SC/MSPB where it can be prosecuted as a manager committing a prohibited personnel practice.  In Dep’t of Veteran Affairs, Georgia and NFFE, 71 FLRA No. 82 (2019) … Continue reading →

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