Posted on March 11, 2025 by AdminUN

UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS IN A RIF, MASS FIRING OF PROBATIONERS, DIRECTED REASSIGNMENT REMOVAL OR DEFERRED RESIGNATION

The lethal litigators at the Gilbert Employment Laws, PC in Silver Spring Maryland are working hard to help federal employees.  They not only filed a well-researched class action with the MSPB to overturn the harm to damaged feds, but they are putting together helpful blog posts.  We borrowed the title of one for the title of this post and are sending it along to you, if you click here. We are sure that you have members that are intensely interested in the unemployment benefits available to them once the Musk machete takes a swing at them.

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Posted on March 4, 2025 by AdminUN

“SHE IS ON MEDICATION”

A supervisor asked a contractor to keep an eye on an employee who had yelled and cursed on the job that day and to report back to him about any further incidents. The supervisor then told the contractor that the employee “is on medication.”  What the supervisor did as described in the first sentence above is ok, but what he did in the second sentence violates law even though it may seem like a tiny, single incident.  Continue reading →

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Posted on March 4, 2025 by AdminUN

OOPS, THEY DID IT AGAIN. SELECTING OFFICIALS WHO CAN’T EXPLAIN THEIR ACTIONS

Like Brittany Spears’ song, some selecting officials are still getting “lost in the game,”  and in the process hurting those around them.  In this case, an employee over 40 years-old applied for a promotion to a supervisory position and made the BQ list, only to be passed over for a 36 year old.  It was the 31st time since 2006 that he had been passed over for promotion, which also happened to be the last year the agency selected anyone older than 37 for promotion. When the employee filed an age discrimination complaint, the selecting official (SO) explained that he chose the younger employee because he was the “best qualified” for the job of the 20 candidates on the BQ list. The SO outlined how he had talked to several managers about the BQ candidates, but provided no notes or details from those conversations to back up his conclusion. Here is how the case went to a very quick victory, retroactive promotion and back pay for the employee.   Continue reading →

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Posted on February 27, 2025 by AdminUN

THE MSPB STAY OF PROBATIONARY EMPLOYEE TERMINATIONS

Click here for a short overview on what is happening with this extremely welcomed decision from the folks at Democracy Now, who are doing very creative legal work for federal employees. And here is a copy of the brief the Special Counsel filed to get the stay.

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Posted on February 27, 2025 by AdminUN

FOR ALL US FMLA GROUPIES

I know that some union locals have designated stewards who handle all their FMLA matters.  The rest need to be able to get answers quickly when a member knocks on the door with an FMLA problems.  The American Bar Association issues an annual report on the latest developments in FMLA law. While there are some slight differences between what private and federal sector entitlements are, this ABA report is a great resource for a union. It not only might alert a union to a wrinkle in the law it was unaware of if it takes the time to page through it, but also give a union rep a good idea of what must be done when an employee needs help.  You can find the link to it in this post from FMLA Insights: “A Winter Treat! The ABA’s Summary of 2024 FMLA Court Decisions Has Arrived.”

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Posted on February 24, 2025 by AdminUN

SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS: PROBATIONERS AND THE PRIVACY ACT

If you are not heartbroken about what King Kruel has done to thousands of innocent federal probationary employees, then you likely spent your childhood pulling wings off flies and lighting random fires. He took their jobs away, he took their health insurance away,  and he made their futures so much harder by officially firing them for poor performance. I understand why he had to accuse them of being poor performers. He needed some reason and alleged poor performance is very, very difficult to appeal. But now every fired probationer will have to declare on future job applications that they were fired for being poor performers. If those applications go through machine scans, they will be screened out without any human every looking at them. Many probationers are also going to have a hard time getting unemployment insurance quickly because many states penalize you for being fired—as if it is always the employee’s fault. But what about the Privacy Act?  Continue reading →

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Posted on February 24, 2025 by AdminUN

WHY (ALMOST) ALL FEDERAL EMPLOYEE UNIONS’ TOP LEADERS ARE HYPOCRITES

That’s right, even though the staffers at Fedsmill consider themselves to be diehard supporters of unions, we must call a foul when we see top union leaders behave so miserably toward a group of their employees. Every federal employee who completes a probationary or trial period is entitled to challenge an agency’s decision to fire him or her to a hearing before a third party neutral.  Moreover, this neutral can not only order the terminated employee reinstated, but in certain cases give money damages beyond any back pay entitlement and order the agency to consider discipline the agency manager who imposed the termination.  Additionally, even those employees no longer in the bargaining unit, namely those who became managers or confidential employees are entitled to due process before being fired. Finally, as best as I can tell the non-supervisory staff of every federal employee union has formed their own union and have the right to challenge any disciplinary action to arbitration. That leaves only one group of employees on the staff of these unions or among the people they represent who are totally exposed to unfair, arbitrary, capricious and retaliatory terminations without an opportunity to challenge.  I am talking about…  Continue reading →

Posted in Union Administration | Tagged | 4 Comments

Posted on February 19, 2025 by AdminUN

SAVE A PROBATIONER

Here is something unions should consider to help probationers in addition to the lawsuit they filed.  By terminating probationers, the agencies undoubtedly impacted the employees left behind. And as we all know, if an agency intends to implement a change it must give the union advance notice and an opportunity to negotiate to an agreement before the change can be implemented.  That includes dealing with union information demands and other process-related litigation, and FSIP.  If your agency did not give your union advance notice – and that must be SPECIFIC notice, then it likely committed a ULP. While the agency has not violated the terminated probationers’ rights, it did violate the union’s right to notice and bargaining. The best course of action is to file a grievance alleging a ULP violation, i.e., 7116(a)(1) and (5).  (If you file a ULP with FLRA, it will just sit in the corner for years because there is no General Counsel at FLRA.)  Without a GC, FLRA does not have authority to file complainants.  Don’t load the grievance up with other allegations such as contract violations because that will only give FLRA a technical mechanism to keep the grievance out of court. Be sure to ask for reinstatement of all the probationers with retroactive compensation and benefits, attorney fees, and all other appropriate remedies.  (Ironically, by the time most unions win these cases the employees will also be considered by the law as having finished their probationary period.) The agency will deny the grievance and you will have to take the case to the FLRA.  Given that the White House will fill the FLRA with employee and union hating tools, union will probably need to take their cases to the courts to get the win.  Here are a couple of FEDSMILL.com posts that review just what is required by “specific notice.  https://fedsmill.com/nonotice103942/  and 

https://fedsmill.com/10207-2/

 

Posted in Probation Period | Tagged | 3 Comments

Posted on February 19, 2025 by AdminUN

A NEGOTIATOR’S ROOKIE MISTAKE & APPROPRIATE ARRANGEMENTS

This is one of those case law precedents that union negotiators cannot hear about enough. If your proposals are all non-negotiable, you give the employer the right to unilaterally implement its proposed midterm change. It can walk away from the table and not look back.  Continue reading →

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Posted on February 17, 2025 by AdminUN

AND THE FUTURE JUST KEEP COMING: WEARABLES

It will creep up on feds slowly, but make no mistake that it is coming for you.  So, you might as well take a few minutes to know what it is, what it can do to you and what you can do about it. EEOC just released a Fact Sheet on Wearable Technologies; it focuses on smart watches, glasses, helmets, and “digital devices embedded with sensors and worn on the body that may keep track of bodily movements, collect biometric information, and/or track location.”  EEOC is alerting unions and employees about the problems these devices will cause employees as they spread. Union reps would be wise to start thinking about what they are going to do when their agencies ask employees to wear digital trackers that record not only their whereabouts every minute, but also their physical data. If you want to see what advice employers are getting about this, check out the article the Littler Law Firm has posted advising them. 

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