Feb 18, 2012

"Utmost Heinous Kind"

     Council 220 of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the union that represents most Social Security employees, has posted online its January 2012 newsletter. No urgent news in the newsletter, just more proof of the poor relationship between the union and Social Security management. 
     This issue of the newsletter has an item titled "Alabama Employee Wins Reinstatement" that includes this quote from an arbitrator's decision:
I find the behavior of Mr. (Jeff) Murphree, Grievant's fourth line supervisor to be of the utmost heinous kind. [He] used his position as supervisor to stalk Grievant, to humiliate her, to threaten her, to frighten her, and to cause her health to be affected.... [This supervisor] was the malicious leader of these actors [in her removal case]. I find that [this supervisor] used his position [highest authority in the office] to lead his subordinates to lie, to antagonize Grievant and/or to misuse their own positions in order to retaliate against Grievant for having charged [this supervisor] with violation of protected EEO activity. When Grievant sought to work at a different office in a different town in order to free herself from his heinous activities, [this supervisor] managed a way to show up to continue the harassment and to cause false charges to be made against her by his subordinates.

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ah, always good to read AFGE drivel. This edition discusses AFGE's Congressional lobbying efforts. What's interesting is that NCSSMA has a much more profound effect on Congressional lobbying than AFGE. Why you ask? Because NCSSMA can be trusted. Exaggerations and even outright lies consistently come from AFGE-an organization out to destroy and discredit management while taxpayers foot the bill (through official time, when Union folks do "Union work" on Agency time).

The next time Witold complains about lack of staffing, maybe we should ask him when he plans to do CR work.

Anonymous said...

Feel free to correct me if I am wrong, however, the extremely disturbing portion of article is quoting an ARBITRATOR, rather than a member of either side. I would tend to give credibility to the findings of an arbitrator.

Nancy Ortiz said...

What in the world happened in this case? Whatever it was can't possibly be as the Union describes it. A fourth line supervisor (AD, perhaps) has to be able to visit every office under his jurisdiction to do his job. Did he even know what this employee looked like? I've been the object of many similar attacks. Often, I haven't been anywhere near the complainant when some alleged offense occurred. So, I have always wanted to hear a simple factual account of the horrors some manager has now perpetrated. Really, just the facts, ma'am.

Anonymous said...

With all due respect, why do you say it "can't possibly be as the Union describes it?" Why is it so difficult to believe that a human (SSA management employee) acted so poorly and used such poor judgment? I fail to understand why this is so "unbelievable"...

Why in the world would an arbitrator make such statements if it WEREN'T believable?

Quite honestly, I find even more unbelievable that anyone would question that a human, be it a SSA management employee OR a member of the union, could possibly use poor judgment. It happens every day - hopefully not to this extent but we all know these things happen.

Why would we try to pretend they don't? In this case, clearly the facts have been verified.

Anonymous said...

With all due respect, why do you say it "can't possibly be as the Union describes it?" Why is it so difficult to believe that a human (SSA management employee) acted so poorly and used such poor judgment? I fail to understand why this is so "unbelievable"...

Why in the world would an arbitrator make such statements if it WEREN'T believable?

Quite honestly, I find even more unbelievable that anyone would question that a human, be it a SSA management employee OR a member of the union, could possibly use poor judgment. It happens every day - hopefully not to this extent but we all know these things happen.

Why would we try to pretend they don't? In this case, clearly the facts have been verified.

Anonymous said...

it can't be possible to believe most anything THIS union describes. if you have dealt with them, you know what i mean.

i am sure bad judgment and management exist in the federal government. but this union has cried wolf way too many times for way too many trivial issues that you need a healthy dose of salt to go with anything they claim.

Anonymous said...

What everyone needs to know is that labor and management can't stand being in the same room and that hurts morale with federal employess and more importantly it produces an inferior product to the public. Management and labor need to work to together and they both need to understand that the public pays our salary.

Anonymous said...

Why would an AD care that much about an FO employee? Arbitrators can be biased to one side. When I read language like that quoted in the post I immediately discredit the arbitrator. I wonder if it was Bankston?

Anonymous said...

Why don't we just go ahead and call the employee a liar - and stone her for going against a prestigious "AD". Maybe she was under the assumption that we lived in a country based on justice for ALL, rather than justice for THE UPPER LEVEL MANAGEMENT.

How quickly we are to give credibility blindly - without knowing anything about the facts.

Not a one of us know the facts of this case but we are sure quick to discredit the lowly FO employee.

Shame on us!

Anonymous said...

After clicking on the link and reading the story, I find it extremely sad that anyone would defend a manager's behavior in this situation.

Anonymous said...

I've been on both sides of this stuff, as an employee and as a manager. While I think AFGE is somewhat dysfunctional, I've seen things on the part of management (as part of it)that would curl your hair. Having worked directly under an AD whom I'd politely describe as "disturbed", the level of coverups and obfuscation in this agency is way too high.

Nancy is a straight shooter. Most ADs don't give a hoot about an individual employee. However, the arbitrator's language is unusually harsh, leading me to believe that this was a pretty egregious situation. Sadly, it's probably not all that unusual.

Anonymous said...

Been an employee, a union rep, and a manager in both field and HQ and there are plenty of sordid stories on both sides. Some of the stories OGC attorney's could tell if it wouldn't violate ethics would curl your toes. Lousy managers are protected when they shouldn't be, often because blowing the whistle will unearth far too many hidden items. These happen enough to require taking allegations of misconduct seriously. Appraisals handed down from "on high"? Check. Promotions pre-decided? Check. New managers bullied to "get with the program". Check. People doing illegal things and fired? Check on both sides. Bad office romances? Occur a lot. Hard to believe that managers never have feet of clay, I know. But some do. Best thing is to cast the suckers out rather than circle the wagons.

Anonymous said...

Does SSA ever perform random "audits" on field offices for things such as procedures, ethics violations, etc.? I would think there would be some type of check and balance system built in.

Without a check and balance system it looks like there would be a perfect storm brewing for absolute power ... and corruption in the field offices.

It seems that ALJ's are under extreem scrutiny - why wouldn't field offices also be accountable for their day-to-day practices and decisions?

I am sure there are some fantastic, extremely professional field offices, however, in our area there are some that operate like "the wild west". It is absolutely mind-boggling what these people get away with on a daily basis. The stories are literally unbelievable. Unfortunately, our society often times tends to assign credibility to an individual based on the balance in their bank account, meaning, nobody will listen to or believe a broke claimant with "some wild story".

Anonymous said...

Arbitrator's are not infallible. The employee in this case plead guilty to a felony while awaiting the arbitrator's decision. I'm sure if the arbitrator had known the details of that criminal case she may have had reason to question the credibility of some of outlandish accusations that were made.

Anonymous said...

Uhm Anon 11:22 Feb 20 I think you seriously have your cases mixed up - you need to click on the link and read the story!

Anonymous said...

I have been a union rep off-and-on for years. The main legitimate function is to protect staff from incompetent and/or malicious management. The political leanings of the union are abhorrent to me and I avoid them as much as possible. Management truly is the biggest waster of taxpayer money in the agency. Sure, the union gets hyperbolic. But government management does not answer to a bottom line as in the provate sector, so all they know how to do is retain and wield power over their underlings. NCSSMA is actually a very helpful organization, but tends to ignore the abuses of its members. AFGE is the opposite--it is the leadership that gets out of control, and the member and local reps that have to solve the problems.

Anonymous said...

Anon 8:07, Can you post examples of the unbelievable things these "wild west" FOs are doing? You made a similar comment in another blog post recently.

Have you contacted the District Manager about these practices? What about the Regional Office? If you have and your concerns of "wild west" practices still fell on deaf ears, have you contacted your Congress person's district office?

If you have not and will not do these things, then I have serious doubts as to the validity of your claim.