I am no expert on this contract but the most obvious and important sign of FSIP hostility towards the union concerns the amount of paid time that union officials can put in on union business each year. In the past, the union was provided up to 22,000 hours per year of which it used an average of 15,226 hours per year. FSIP ordered that the union receive only 1,200 hours per year. This is only a third of the 3,600 hours that Social Security had already offered the union! The appearance is that the union was punished for its audacity in not accepting what the agency offered.
The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) recently sued to remove FSIP members for bias. This was added to already pending litigation over the fact that FSIP members have not been subject to Senate confirmation. Those suits will probably still be pending come next January. Should Joe Biden be elected President, his Administration would have the opportunity to settle the suits in a manner favorable to the employee unions. This is one of a number of recent actions by this Administration that may be quickly reversed if Trump is not re-elected.
“ The Union argues that it did not address Article 15, Telework in its statement of position because the Panel indicated in the procedural determination letter that it was withdrawing its jurisdiction over the following proposal contained in the Article: “The Agency retains sole discretion to change, reduce, suspend, or eliminate approved telework days of any Judge, office or agency-wide due to operational needs.
ReplyDelete....
If the Union was confused it could have reached out to the Panel or the Agency to clarify it.”
Now the union knows what reps and claimants feel like when a decision raises an issue never brought up in the hearing. At least the union knew it was an adversarial process.
I question whether any decisions from the FSIP are valid and enforceable, given the Panel is completely stacked by anti-Union activists, and none have been confirm by the Senate.
ReplyDeleteTrump has circumvented the required process for Appointments across the board over and over again preferring Acting Officials he can fire willy nilly for any reason, which he has done repeatedly, as if running the US Government is a Reality TV Show.
At what point will Americans demand he follow the US Constitution and Rule of Law? AG Barr, no doubt, will find ways, but he can only go so far. It seems to me that the FSIP is nothing more than a Banana Republic version of what it is supposed to be, and their decisions should be null and void until the composition of the Panel is correctly chosen, and all Appointments to the Panel are Senate confirmed. This Administration has made a mockery of our well established Constitutional Processes and the Rule of Law, and it sickens me to continuously observe them stomp all over it, and get away with it with no accountability. The GOP mantra that this is what the people chose, so we are going to look the other way until the next election, can no longer be tolerated.
The FSIP has to go. Their decision gave the Administration the right to cut back or terminate telework which SSA (Saul) did immediately.
ReplyDeleteIt took SSA employees and the union decades to get past management intransegence and foot dragging to achieve the right to work from home. Our telework was then suddenly and completely terminated without good reason by the right wing FSIP, and the extremist Saul.