Posted on March 12, 2016 by AdminUN

NTEU STUNG BY IRS FLIM-FLAM?

We ran across an article in NTEU’s Chapter 60 “Watchdog” newsletter that shines a bright light on the games too many agencies play with their performance award money. Given that the story is written by one of the most thoughtful voices in NTEU and long-time anchor of their national bargaining teams, we are confident he has the facts correct. We have written repeatedly (See “Topics” column) about how unions can get force greater fairness out of agency award systems. We understand the pain NTEU feels in light of the fact that the union lost its contract right to a guaranteed awards budget in the 2015 round of negotiations. But, frankly, we also understand IRS’s need to hang on to its best managers after four years of totally dishonest political bludgeoning by a wing of Congress eager to defund government and reduce audits of wealthy donors. Looks like NTEU’s IRS unit might be following its second largest unit of Customs and Border Protection folks to the ranks of the chronically dissatisfied fed employees.  Here is the story we recommend you read. Continue reading →

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Posted on March 9, 2016 by AdminUN

HAS CBP SURRENDERED IN MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR BACK PAY CASE?

Close to 20,000 current, former, and possibly dead Customs and Border Protection Officers (CBPO) got what should be great news in January. (DHS, CBP v. FLRA, D.C.Cir., No. 15-1471, January 29, 2016) After fighting the union since 2001 over how overtime should be assigned, the agency seems to have raised the white flag and surrendered by withdrawing from court an appeal of an FLRA decision.  The Authority upheld 10 back pay formulae an arbitrator imposed on the agency to compensate for its refusal to follow the law, namely, 5 USC 6101 and 5 CFR 610. The agency has to apply those formulas pay period by pay period all the way back to 2004 for every CBPO who has worked for the agency between then and at least 2011 when the parties signed a new agreement and OT assignment procedure. Imagine the task of solving a jumbled Rubik’s Cube with the added requirement that there is a number on each square that must be placed in the proper order. That is the task that awaits CBP.  But maybe something else is happening. Things are not always what they seem. Continue reading →

Posted in Overtime | Tagged | 1 Comment

Posted on March 9, 2016 by AdminUN

UNION WINS ARBITRATION FOR NON-UNIT EMPLOYEE

That’s right; you are not seeing things. The union filed a grievance on behalf of a non-unit temporarily assigned to unit work.  When the agency did not pay the employee what it was required under the contract to compensate a unit employee, the union grieved.  We can’t blame them.  After all, if the agency can slot non-unit people into to unit jobs to get them done more cheaply, that is something unions are in business to take care of. Congrats to the United Power Trades Organization for reminding everyone of this rule.  He agency filed exceptions to the arbitrator’s decision alleging that… Continue reading →

Posted in Grievance/Arbitration | Tagged | 2 Comments

Posted on March 9, 2016 by AdminUN

NEW EEOC PUBLICATION OUTLINES ADA RIGHTS OF HIV-POSITIVE EMPLOYEES

The title says it all. If you area involved with an HIV-positive employee, as a union rep or manager, this is something you need to look through.

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Posted on March 9, 2016 by AdminUN

ATHEIST ENTITLED TO “RELIGIOUS” ACCOMMODATION

How far can unbelievers insist their employers go to respect their beliefs about religion?  Here is an interesting story about a new court case that suggests atheists have as much of a right to demand an accommodation as others. (Mathis v. Christian Heating and Air, No. 13-3740, ED PA, 2016))

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Posted on March 6, 2016 by AdminUN

DO UNION ATTORNEY FEES VIOLATE NONMEMBERS’ CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS?

Labor unions are breathing a sigh of relief now that Justice Scalia chose an ultra-rightwing meeting of animal killers to steal the spotlight by following the groups’ prey to another place.  He looked like a sure vote to uphold a claim by the Christian Educators Association that it violates California public school teachers’ Constitutional rights to force them to pay any union dues, even reduced dues. They claimed that one way or another their dues enable a union to spend more money on lobbying causes and election campaigns that the teachers might oppose as individuals. It occurs to us that there just might be the same problem with attorney fees collected by federal sector unions. Here is how we reach that conclusion. Continue reading →

Posted in Attorney Fees | Tagged | 2 Comments

Posted on March 4, 2016 by AdminUN

EEOC UPHOLDS LANGUAGE DISCRIMINATION VIOLATION

When a private contractor being audited by the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) complained that he could not understand the federal employee auditing him, the management ordered the employee to communicate all messages through a supervisor.  Apparently, the contractor had problems dealing not only with the employee’s accent, but also her written communications.  EEOC had no problem, however, in ruling the agency had discriminated against the employee based on national origin. It ordered the agency to examine the damage done the employee, including emotional damage, and to pay her compensatory damages.  They can be as high as $300,000 and attorney fee awards can be in the same financial range. The agency lost the case because it did not investigate the contractor’s complaint to see if the employee’s communications were unintelligible, nor did it offer any evidence that anyone else in the agency or that the employee dealt with complained. (See Gennie L. v. Ashton Carter, DOD, EEOC Appeal No. Appeal No. 0120122795 (2016)) EEOC’s position in language problem cases is that employer’s must have legitimate business reasons to base an employment decision on linguistic characteristics and those reasons must justify any burden placed on the employee.

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Posted on March 4, 2016 by AdminUN

A FEDERAL EMPLOYEE MAKES $6.4 MILLION

And this guy wants to lower federal employee pensions. Read for yourself from the N. Y. Times.

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Posted on February 28, 2016 by AdminUN

ANOTHER EEOC GUIDE

Just a few days ago we pointed you in the direction of the AFGE Guide to Fighting Discrimination as a great source for employees and their union reps embarking on an EEO charge. But we don’t want you to think there are no other great sources for the inexperienced layperson entering the EEOC maze. Here is another one we really like called EEO21.com.

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Posted on February 27, 2016 by AdminUN

CBP’S HAIL MARY PASS BLOWN DEAD

You needn’t have stayed on top of federal sector labor relations developments over the last decade to know that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is involved in a ton of litigation with the unions representing its employees, namely, AFGE and NTEU. Nor did you need high reading comprehension skills to pick up that the agency has lost almost every one of those fights before arbitrators and the FLRA. We have been wondering what the agency would do once it was out of appeal options and starring a few multi-million dollar back pay orders in the face, and we got our answer not long ago. Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment