Posted on December 8, 2016 by AdminUN

FEDSMILL IS LOOKING FOR RESTRUCTURING IDEAS

Leadership of all the federal agencies that so deeply impact federal employee lives is about the change radically, bringing with it new challenges for some and opportunities for others. We want to get ready to respond to both, but to do that we probably have to reduce our role in operating Fedsmill.com.  Just how we do that is something we are starting to explore.  One option is transfer control to some national union or other employee advocate such as a law firm or retired fed LR/ER/HR/EEO expert. Do we partner with a university LR program? Do we just assist someone else to get their own site going from scratch and retire the Fedsmill operation? While we have begun contacting some law firms and a handful of retired, but still very involved, federal LR/ER/HR folks, we would like your ideas too.  If you have some, just send us an e-mail via the comment section after every story. It will be just between us.

Posted in Fedsmill | Tagged | 2 Comments

Posted on December 5, 2016 by AdminUN

HARVARD OFFERS INSIGHT ON WHY SOME MANAGERS ARE DOMINATORS

The on-line Harvard Business Review just posted a piece entitled, “Good Bosses Switch Between Two Leadership Styles.” The two styles are managing by dominating subordinates versus inspiring through the prestige of being an expert in whatever occupational filed one is in. The author makes the point that both styles can be appropriate depending on the situation. While we agree that there are situations that call for a manager to hoard all information, intimidate, coerce, threaten, and/or laud his/her power over employees, the piece strongly suggests that one reason a boss might always use a dominating style is that s/he doesn’t have the skill, talent, smarts, etc. to use any of the other styles. In fact, we wonder if this is particularly true of leaders at the top of complex, multi-departmental organizations who may have been expert in one departmental task area, but have little to nothing to offer in other departmental areas. Dominating staff, even to the point of “disappearing’ some as a warning to others, seems an especially sound hypothesis in organizations with weak oversight from executive boards, or no oversight as in privately owned entities. We ended the HBR piece thinking that maybe OPM should add a question to the annual survey to ask employees to rank their supervisor’s tendency to manage via domination techniques rather than inspiring and energizing staff. With very rare exception, nearly everyone agrees long term dominators hobble, if not destroy, organizations.

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Posted on December 1, 2016 by AdminUN

DO YOU KNOW GINA?

Not that one. We are talking about the Genetic Information Non-discrimination Act (GINA). It has been law for a few years and we hope many union reps have heard about it. But we worry that not very many at all know what a GINA violation looks like. One rule of thumb is that if the issue concerns a medical or mental condition and employee currently has or is thought to have that is typically a disability issue. If the issue concerns the potential for an employee or applicant having a medical or mental condition that is typically a GINA issue. Most labor agreements allow for the issue to be grieved; otherwise, pursue them through the EEO office. The two most common violations are requests for employee or applicant family medical history and demands for DNA swabs. If you want a far more thorough understanding of the law than we can provide, we recommend the 2016 posting, “A Brief Legal Overview of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act.”

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Posted on December 1, 2016 by AdminUN

WHAT IS AN A/SLMR?

If the acronym does not register a bell, maybe the widespread pronunciation will. Those of us who got into the LR business before 1979 commonly pronounced it A-SLAMMER. Still don’t know? Well, long, long ago and far, far away in a dark forest without any laws, federal sector labor relations operated under the paternal generosity of Presidential Executive Orders. And whenever an employee thought an agency or union committed an unfair labor practice, the complaint was filed with the Department of Labor’s Assistant Secretary for Labor Management Relations, the initials of which are A/SLMR. You might say the case law that came out of that office set the stage for what we have today from FLRA. In fact, if you read FLRA decisions carefully, down to the footnote, you will see more than 1,000 mentions of A/SLMR case precedent–most recently last September.  At times, it can be helpful to an advocate to trace an issue back to A/SLMR precedent to see how it compares to what FLRA has done. If you ever have the need to do so, you can find these decisions tucked away on FLRA gov on the following page: https://www.flra.gov/decisions/archival-decisions-legislative-history-foreign-service-decisions

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Posted on December 1, 2016 by AdminUN

THANKS, NFFE, FOR AN IMPRESSIVE “TOOLBOX”

We probably owe NFFE an apology for not mentioning this sooner, but it web site has jumped up several notches since we last checked it out thoroughly.  And one of the best feature is it openness to folks outside of NFFE who might be looking for help. NFFE calls it the “Toolbox.” The name fits because it contains so much advice about how to fix things that union reps run into all the time. We were first impressed with how well thought out its tools are for dealing with employee disabilities. It has put a bundle of resources a click away from the user. But it most interesting tool was developed by NFFE staff and is entitled, “Federal Sector Guide to Handling Complaints.” Like AFGE which we complimented a few weeks ago for also taking an open-system approach to sharing information with all federal employees via its YouTube training films, NFFE’s contribution can only spur continuing efforts by other national unions to boost the quality of their assistance. That is one open-market we have no qualms about. Keep that competition going because a victory in one union’s local often can improve things for everyone else.

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Posted on November 28, 2016 by AdminUN

IS A LESS STRESSFUL WORKING ENVIRONMENT A REASONABLE ACCOMMODATION?

It seems that one local court in Florida does not think so, but what would you expect from a bunch of judges who can’t be fired, have no production deadlines, and are never evaluated. This decision reminds us of the FLRA decisions which held that sudden severe increases in employee workloads do not amount to changes in working conditions. A Florida employee suffering from epilepsy asked that his manager adopt a less domineering, overbearing stress-inducing style of managing. His doctor certified that high tension and stress triggered his seizures. Too bad, pronounced the court. Asking someone to manage in a mature, enlightened manner is asking too much. Although what we would not be surprised to find is a well-tanned judge felt stress-induced seizures are not worthy of accommodations, we hope that no one will be intimidated by this decision. In fact, we are keeping our fingers crossed this decision not only gets overturned but is ignored across the land. Check out a post from the Jackson/Lewis law firm entitled, “Employee Seeking Less Stressful Work Environment Denied ADA Protections” if you want more details.

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Posted on November 28, 2016 by AdminUN

NFFE SIGNS JEFF FRIDAY AS GENERAL COUNSEL

There is a small group, in fact, let’s call it a tiny group, of attorneys in Washington who have experience in virtually every area in which a union would want its GC skilled. NFEE just snatched up one of them.  Sport fans might call it the free agent signing of the year.  Arbitrations hearings, ULP proceedings, appropriate unit disputes, FMCS/FSIP dispute proceedings, election challenges, internal union politics, managing union conventions, building membership, leading organizing drives, networking, union local training & development, EEOC & MSPB work, etc. are areas in which he has practiced and excelled elsewhere in the labor movement. Most importantly, he brings a 30-year, soul-deep commitment to union work that we are sure will benefit NFFE members. We could not be happier for NFFE and for Jeff.

Posted in NFFE | Tagged | 1 Comment

Posted on November 28, 2016 by AdminUN

LIMITS ON CASH AWARDS TO FEDERAL EMPLOYEES LOOSENED

Hope you did not miss Eric Yoder’s piece in a recent Washington Post about how the outgoing White House Administration just told agencies that they can and should increase the funding of their employee award programs.  This should fire up some bargaining table conversations as unions seek to find out what changes may result and LR Specialists move to fend off any bargaining demands. It will be interesting to watch how agencies distribute this extra cash, assuming their appropriations are not already so low that they are running bake sale to keep the lights on. Does this mean a bigger addition to the bonuses for managers than the unit employees who produce the work for them–or even to some segments of the bargaining unit and not others? Of course, it will be even more interesting to see whether this financial authority is canceled late in the day on January 20th, 2017 as part of making American Great Again. Imagine how “GREAT” that will be.  (That is a bit of sarcasm incase anyone is confused.  Given that feds are already paid about 34% less than their similarly situated private sector counter-parts, boosting performance awards money seems like a perfect way to close that gap given political realities.)

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Posted on November 28, 2016 by AdminUN

WHEN AGENCIES DRAG OUT DISCIPLINE INVESTIGATIONS

Throughout our career we benefitted from making a note of an excerpt, footnote or even snippet of a case, regulatory comment or policy transmittal. They proved invaluable at bargaining tables when the other side was blindly denying some fact, precedent or concept. We just ran across a good one in a new MSPB case where the Board had to deal with an agency that took discipline against an employee even though it let the investigation drag out for eons. That Board smacked the agency down and here is the critical passage that practitioner son either side of the table might find useful. Continue reading →

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Posted on November 21, 2016 by AdminUN

ISSA, CHAFFETZ TARGET VETS FOR TERMINATION

House leaders just announced that they are coming after veterans, including those with injuries, by making it easier to fire them and deny them other rights.  Yup! God’s honest truth.  Today’s e-media carried a story about how eager House leaders like Chaffetz of Utah are to make it easier to fire federal employees.  Chaffetz, apparently ignorant of the MSPB statistics showing that more than 70% of the time a federal agency fires an employee the firing is upheld even upon an appeal and the fact that employees terminated in their probationary period are almost never reinstated—a 100% success termination rate for agencies, told the media, “It is almost impossible to fire somebody,” in the federal government. Continue reading →

Posted in Discipline/Adverse Action | Tagged | 6 Comments