Posted on October 30, 2019 by AdminUN

UNION NEGOTIATOR’S QUIZ

Imagine you are in this situation.  You are in term negotiations and the agency refused to bargain over three provisions that have been in the agreement for more than a decade.  It claims they are suddenly non-negotiable.  When the larger dispute went to the Panel for resolution, in line with its anti-union approach to life no matter how much it hurt employees, the Panel ruled that it would resolve all the disputes except for the ones the agency alleged to be non-negotiable. When the Panel spit out a final decision, the agency implemented it as soon as possible.  As for the three provisions the Panel did not address, the agency simply replaced the existing agreement language with its own last proposal. One of the proposals provided that employees could choose the shift they worked on by seniority, e.g., the 7 a.m. to 3:30 pm shift or the 9:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. shift.   What does the union do now if it believes that existing FLRA case removes any doubt about the negotiability of the proposals? Continue reading →

Posted in Bargaining Negotiability, Grievance/Arbitration, Strategy/tactics | Tagged | Leave a comment

Posted on October 30, 2019 by AdminUN

3 YEARS, 5 MONTHS & 19 DAYS IS NOT PROMPT

Because the collective bargaining agreement characterized the grievance process as designed to provide for the “prompt” settlement of grievances, an arbitrator decided to void the union’s grievance on behalf of a removed employee as not promptly processed. The reference to “prompt” efforts appears in dozens of agreements, and this case signals that more unions are going to lose the grievance entirely when they invoke arbitration, but then take months and years to request an arbitration panel, schedule a hearing date, file post-hearing briefs. Moreover, a Court of Appeals case gives agencies even more reason to punish foot-dragging unions. Continue reading →

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Posted on October 26, 2019 by AdminUN

WHY WE WENT DARK- Sorry about being down for about 4 weeks.  It seems some dissatisfied reader screwed with our site. After lots of tech help and a few bills to pay we hope we are back for another long run. We have posted 994 articles to date and hope to double that before we are done.

Posted in Union Administration | Tagged | Leave a comment

Posted on October 1, 2019 by AdminUN

MSPB POLICY DIRECTOR ENDORSES PASS-FAIL EVALUATION SYSTEMS

If you listen to the anti-labor and anti-employee zealots clogging the OPM and FLRA policy making levels, you would think that union proposals to establish Pass-Fail appraisal ratings systems are Satanic-derived plots to destroy the world. So, we found it interesting that the folks in the MSPB Policy and Evaluation shop, who make decisions based on actual research rather than what will sound good on FOX new publicly disagreed with OPM and FLRA’s political operatives.  Continue reading →

Posted in Bargaining Negotiability, Performance | Tagged | Leave a comment

Posted on September 20, 2019 by AdminUN

RELIGIOUS REFUSALS TO DO WORK

QUESTION: When can an employee demand that he or she not be required to perform certain tasks?  ANSWER: When performance of the work conflicts with the employee’s religious convictions and it is reasonable for the employer to accommodate the employee the agency likely would be required to let the employee avoid the task. Continue reading →

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Posted on September 19, 2019 by AdminUN

YIKES! SOMEONE CALL IVANKA. STAT!

The FSIP appears to have turned into a treasonous entity. Since Jared is busy putting the finishing touches on peace in the Mideast, Ivanka seems to be the next most powerful person to alert.  In a recent decision dealing with official time the Panel uttered what can only be read as hearsay.  It said that in disputes involving official time it is not going to adopt an agency’s position in the absence of actual data or evidence. What are they going to do next?  Stay at other than a Trump hotel when in DC? How insulting to the President that his staff is expected to provide evidence to back up their statements. Continue reading →

Posted in FSIP | Tagged | 2 Comments

Posted on September 19, 2019 by AdminUN

TRUMP PICKS ON THE DISABLED;  HIS BASE PURGES THEM

Few will forget how our Leader mocked a reporter during the campaign for being disabled.  For those who thought that suggested a man with a low opinion of the disabled, here are some stats to fill out your thinking on his predisposition toward the disabled.  In 2017, the federal government fired 2,626 full-time employees with disabilities, according to documents from the EEOC obtained by NBC News. That marks a 24 percent increase from 2016. There also has been a 20 percent increase since Jan. 1, 2017, in the number of disability discrimination complaints filed by federal employees of cabinet-level agencies, according to an NBC News analysis of data from the EEOC.   The President does not fire or discriminate against these folks himself.  That is done by his appointees, who are drawn from his political base. You can draw your own conclusions, but we also hope union leaders realize that there is a great need for skilled reps among the disabled.  So, get out there and train your stewards in the basics of disability discrimination and try to recruit new stewards from among the disabled. Better yet, open up conversations with the associations representing the disabled.  You both need each other.

Posted in EEO/Disabilities | Tagged | 1 Comment

Posted on September 17, 2019 by AdminUN

CAN FSIP DENY A UNION THE RIGHT TO BARGAIN OVER UNSPECIFIED FUTURE CHANGES?

Not long ago Trump’s Panel ruled that an agency was free to determine the amount of the annual wage increase in each year of the new, multi-year agreement without bargaining with the union. The agency did not have to give the union advance, specific notice of the amount nor bargain over the impact and implementation. Moreover, having given the agency limitless discretion, the union had virtually no way to grieve the figure the agency picked. According to the Panel, the union was to sit there throughout the life of the agreement and take whatever increase the agency deigned to bestow on the employees—or no unit employee increase at all if that is what the agency wanted to do. But, can the Panel do that? Continue reading →

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Posted on September 17, 2019 by AdminUN

THANKS AGAIN AFGE

AFGE’s General Counsel shop has shown, once again, how aggressively it is going to protect federal employees.  When the Office of the Special Counsel put out Hatch Act advice warning feds not to show any support for “resisting” what is going on in this country, AFGE decided to push back and filed a lawsuit. It wants an injunction to stop that kind of intimidation of feds who know better than anyone else the impact on current government operations and effectiveness. After the President ignored the Special Counsel’s finding that KellyAnne Conway repeatedly violated the Hatch Act and should be fired, you would think the Special Counsel would be the last person to warn feds not to exercise all their Constitutional rights.

Posted in Hatch Act | Tagged | Leave a comment

Posted on September 17, 2019 by AdminUN

WHY DON’T UNIONS ALLY WITH VETERAN GROUPS?

Unions need all the help they can get these days and one need only look at the President to see how powerless someone can be without allies. So, why aren’t unions leaders knocking on the doors of the various Veterans organization to get their help with federal employee issues? A recent White House report shows that veterans are 31.1 percent of the entire Federal workforce, which includes the 13.3 percent of the workforce who are veterans receiving disability compensation. By comparison, veterans comprise only about 6 percent of the private sector non-agricultural workforce. What more evidence is needed to show that unions and veteran organizations have very substantial overlapping interests? The most fundamental job protections all feds have today came about in the 40s because Congress wanted to protect Vets returning from WW II, e.g., the adverse action due process protections. Somewhere along the line union leaders got cocky and thought they could go it alone.  We now see how foolish  that was. It is time one or more of the national union leader reached out to reestablish this natural alliance because strong collective bargaining rights benefit thousands of vets.

Posted in Union Politics | Tagged | Leave a comment