From Government Executive:
An investigator with the Federal Labor Relations Authority has preliminarily concluded that the Social Security Administration illegally attempted to intimidate officials with the Association of Administrative Law Judges earlier this year.
In June, the union filed an unfair labor practice complaint alleging that in January, management officials verbally threatened to “discipline” union officials after they took official time and left the workplace to prepare for a collective bargaining negotiation session, despite the fact that the practice is spelled out in an existing union contract and a memorandum of understanding.
“We don’t have union offices like other unions, so we need more flexibility to do union-related work, both for obviously practical reasons and for confidentiality concerns,” AALJ President Melissa McIntosh said. “We were preparing for contract negotiations, and [management] knew that because the period was negotiated in our ground rules.”
McIntosh said that the agency officials did not specify how they would discipline union representatives who continued to use official time off-site, and they refused to submit the warning in writing.
“So I contacted the acting commissioner [Nancy Berryhill by email], and a meeting resulted,” McIntosh said. “There, we were admonished [by Deputy Commissioner Theresa Gruber] to ‘adhere to the chain of command,’ to be patient and that the incident was a small matter.”
This week, the FLRA informed the union and the agency that an investigator has determined that the complaint “has merit,” meaning there is sufficient evidence to indicate that management interfered with employees’ rights to engage in union activity. ...
