Although the Privacy Act was passed over 40 years ago, that doesn’t mean that everyone is following it. For example, the President’s newly appointed Special Counsel issued a press release on January 25, 2018 whining about how the VA did not discipline an employee harshly enough to suit him—and identified the employee by name. Continue reading
The EEOC guidelines on English-only rules, found at 29 C.F.R. § 1606.7, state that an employer may require that employees speak English at certain times in the workplace only if the employer can show that the rule is justified by “business necessity” at those times. An English-only rule is justified by business necessity if it is needed for an employer to operate safely or efficiently. Apparently, not everyone in HR management is bothering to stay up with EEOC rules. Continue reading
If Presidents ignore one tiny clause in the statute, the FSIP can be used as a political club to punish unions and the employees who support them. After all, the President can draw all the appointees from one political party, none have to be confirmed by the Senate, there is no statutory criteria for its decisions to meet, courts cannot review its orders, it need not give the parties due process hearings before making decisions, each can be fired by the President for no reason at all and without recourse, etc. Virtually every check and balance mechanism in the American legal system was withheld from the design of the Panel. Consequently, Trump (and before him Reagan and W. Bush) weaponized it by staffing it with right-wing, political ideologues with long records fighting unions. The only thing potentially stopping the Trump’s Panel from essentially suspending the statutory collective bargaining system during its reign is the tiny statutory clause that requires its members be appointed, “…solely on the basis of fitness to perform the duties and functions involved….” (5 USC 7119(c)(2)). Continue reading
The quick answer is “Nothing good for the union.” Let’s assume that the parties have been bargaining over a 10-issue mid-term MOU, have agreement on five of the issues and disagree on the other five, and have reached impasse at FMCS. If that is all there was to their dispute, the agency cannot implement its proposed changes until the FSIP resolves the dispute—assuming the union timely and properly invokes the Panel’s assistance. But change one fact and the answer is totally different. Continue reading
Trump recently issued three Executive Orders aimed at punishing federal employees, who he prefers to call the “deep state,” and the unions that represent them. By this time it should surprise no one that he has again demonstrated how little he knows or expects his staff to know. One of the Orders bars agencies from putting in negotiated labor agreements any commitment to progressive discipline. His message is that the only good punishment is capital punishment when it comes to federal employees—outside the White House. (We are still waiting to hear what punishment he imposed on Kellyanne Conway in response to the U. S. Special Counsel’s report that she violated the Hatch Act three times.) Continue reading
The folks at JacksonLewis law firm have put out a series of posts to alert primarily managers to mistakes they can commit when administering FMLA. Their 15th post highlights what the employer must do when the employee is approaching the end of his/her 12 week FMLA leave period. We recommend you check it out, especially if involved with an employee who took more than 12 weeks of leave. Union reps just might managers making technical blunders that they can turn to the employee’s advantage.
A former employee has 45 days after s/he leaves an agency to file a complaint over some discriminatory treatment. That can be extended if the employee only learned of the discrimination after the 45th day. But what about the employee who left six months or a year ago? Does the EEOC filing deadline rules bar them from filing? The Commission issued a decision last December that spells out the circumstance under which a former fed can file an EEO complaint against a previous agency employer. Bryan v. Berryhill, SSA, EEOC No. 0120172731. In this case, the agency failed to comply with an EEO settlement requiring it to correct certain information in his personnel file. Continue reading
We recommend that advocates on both sides of the table check out this post from the folks at JacksonLewis, who get paid to advise managers. It raises the idea that unions could demand that agencies provide employee on FMLA leave with work, including telework tasks, so that the employee can stay away from the agency worksite for a longer period of calendar time by stretching their 12 weeks.