Our fellow bloggers at FMLA Insights just published some advice for handling those situations where a chronically sick employees runs out of FMLA leave. It is a good piece for any union rep involved in one of these cases and nearly indispensable reading for an ER/LR Specialist who deals with FMLA issues.
Unions are getting smarter about recruiting new members and like every other institution in this country that means using more technology for everything—including membership growth. Here is a good summary piece on a larger study published by Bloomberg’s Daily Labor Report that outlines just how they are doing it. We recommend you check it out.
See if you can guess in advance of what happened when an attorney agreed to the following conditions for his fee for representing a federal employee: (1) he promised her that his work on the petition for review would cost her nothing; (2) if his efforts on the appellant’s behalf were successful, he would apply for an award of attorney fees; (3) he would give the appellant any fees he was awarded up to the amount she already had paid to the other attorneys; (4) the same understanding applied to any services Mr. Burka might provide in connection with any addendum proceeding after the Board ruled on the petition for review; and (5) if any funds for Mr. Burka’s services were left over, they would be donated to charity after consultation with the appellant. (See Rumsey v. DOJ, 2016 MSPB 28 (2016) for a very complex cases that sets a few new rules for determining fees that FLRA and arbitrators might soon be using.)
Have you ever tried to get in touch with the national union staff person assigned to your local to deal with an urgent matter, but not been able to connect for several days? Have you ever had a national staff representative assigned to your local who is new to the job, knows very little, or just is not very good at what she does? Have you ever gotten an answer from the national staff person assigned to your local that you feel certain is wrong, but you have not had the knowledge of regulations and case law to argue with him? We at Fedsmill.com have seen those situations and think we just might have the answer. We want to build an on-line data base that would give local reps the answer to hundreds of common ER/LR problems with less than a half dozen taps on their I-Pad, laptop, PC, or phone. BUT WE NEED A UNION TO SPONSOR (FUND) THIS WORK, AND IF IT FULLY SPONSORS THE WORK, IT ALONE WILL OWN IT. NO OTHER UNIONS OR AGENCIES WILL HAVE ACCESS. Continue reading
Some unions had periods in their history when they were downright hostile to civil rights struggles, some unions even today handle civil rights cases but not as part of a core strategy or value, and some unions seem to have gone all in on behalf of those involved in civil rights structure making their union’s fight as much about civil rights as it is labor relations. AFGE is squarely in that last group, often doing things no other federal sector union does. We bring this up because FLRA just upheld an arbitration win AFGE got for a corrections officer denied a reasonable accommodation. Continue reading
The very short answer is she is the new H. Joseph Schimansky who has left government to devote his last bits of knee cartilage to the Montgomery County tennis circuit before soaking up some well-deserved California sunshine. The longer answer is that Ms. Moseley is the new Executive Director of the FSIP. She began working in our federal sector LR arena as a Negotiator in the NTEU Department of Negotiations and has since added increasingly impressive achievements at the VA, FAA, DoAg, and DoEd. The FLRA posted a very thorough bio of her last week. We know and admire her as a non-nonsense LR leader with great listening skills, a talented trainer, and a creative problem-solver.
AFGE just got a MSPB decision loaded with lessons for parties on both sides of the table, but especially for the person sitting at the head of the table, namely, the arbitrator. When an arbitrator upheld an employee’s removal for unacceptable performance, AFGE legal counsel wisely realized this was one of those rare cases where MSPB was likely to overturn the arbitrator due to technical flaws in the decision. Under law, an employee can appeal an adverse or unacceptable performance action arbitration decision to MSPB if s/he meets the following criteria: Continue reading
We are always on the lookout for well-done union web sites, by which we mean (1) easy to navigate, (2) loaded with useful information, and (3) timely. AFGE’s council representing HUD employees across the country deserves recognition for its web page updating everyone on the status of all its midterm bargaining activity. It makes it easy to find an issue, it provides the user with access to all the key documents related to that bargaining, and at times it even contains a short comment on the core disputed issue. This is worlds better than even most national union web sites, e.g., it provides users direct access to all counterproposals, it relieves the user from having to search through all the national union’s communications to find the last word on the midterm bargaining issue, and the page is not so stuffed with words as to be a turn off. Bravo 222!
What is a disabled federal employee to do when her agency does not quickly react to her request for reasonable accommodations to help her deal with a disability which her psychiatrist documented as follows: “Complainant had ADD and depression; that she ‘struggles with attention and concentration, poor memory, disorganization, anxiety, depressed mood, [and] impulsivity’?” One IRS employee took her case to the EEOC and came away with several substantial accommodations as well as in all likelihood money to compensate her for the stress IRS put her through. Continue reading