Certainly Bad Law and Maybe Conflicts of Interest at MSPB
The MSPB reversed 30 years of case law to grant employees who should not have a Federal job in the first place the same appeal rights as those who have earned them.
NTEU Responds to FedSmith Article on TSA Organizing
In a recent article, “Aggressive Union Organizing At Transportation Security Administration: National Security Issues?”, the author addressed concerns about the scope of recognition if NTEU were to win the election. The National NTEU President responded to the article. FedSmith provides her response and brief comments from the Author of the article.
Federal Union Pre-Decisional Bargaining: Is There Any Limit on the Scope?
The Office of Personnel Management and Office of Management and Budget (on dual letterhead, the first the Author has seen) issued guidance to Agency Heads on the operation of labor management Forums and on the administrations expectations concerning the Pre-decisional role of Federal unions in Agency decision making. The Author raises a number of questions including whether this memorandum invites ethics problems for Agencies. You decide.
Aggressive Union Organizing at Transportation Security Administration: National Security Issues?
The Author looks at one of the unions involved in organizing TSA. In a letter to airport screeners, a union president promises to continue pressure for a collective bargaining agreement and that if NTEU is elected, all Federal security Agencies present at an airport will be represented by the same union. The Author asks if that is a good idea. You decide.
Federal Civil Service: A Climate for Reform?
The Author asks whether the public feeling that created a new majority in the House of Representatives may include an appetite for reform of Federal employment rules. In this article, he reviews the last reform act and some of its unintended consequences. Many consider the prior reform act a major failure. Read on and make your mind up for yourself.
The Foreboding Future of Grievances in Federal Labor Relations
The Author explains that recent FLRA decisions have simplified life for FLRA members by allowing them to dismiss arbitration appeals with a simple form letter. The FLRA’s approach while easier for its members has raised both the cost and difficulty of resolving grievances throughout the Federal sector. Agency managers and representatives must now go into major defensive mode when dealing with an employee grievance. Read on and see what the Author recommends.
Labor and Employee Relations 2010: Federal Sector Imitates TV and the Movies
The author offers up a recap of the more bizarre and exotic stories in Federal sector labor and employee relations. Each year we think it couldn’t get wackier and each year it does. Again, we don’t make up these stories.
Pay Freeze Misses Federal Employees Whose Unions Will Bargain Pay
The Author discusses the Federal pay freeze statute, the Obama Executive Order and implementing memo as well as OPM’s guidance. He asks whether the apparent exclusion from a pay freeze for those who are going to bargain pay is intentional or otherwise. Nowhere in the law is there a limit or in any of the paper, instructions to Agency management to hold the pay line with the unions. Read it for yourself and decide whether the President’s union friends got a pass.
FLRA’s Christmas Present to a Union?
Groucho Marx said “Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies.” In a recent arbitration appeal, the FLRA reversed itself over an issue involving an agreement made by political direction with the union in the waning days of the Clinton Administration. The current Chairman, a member when the original case was decided did not dissent then but now gives the union not only a second bite of the apple but, arguably, the whole bushel. Is it a holiday gift? You decide.
Federal Employee Pay Freeze: A Bill Clinton “Flashback?”
The author offers comments by a number of agency and union members of the National Council on Federal Labor Management Relations but finds no mention of the pre-decisional involvement of Federal employees or their unions in the decision to freeze Federal employee pay. Didn’t Executive Order 13522 require that? Is this a Bill Clinton flashback? You decide.
