Fwd: President's Newsletter
Dick Goodwin
From: Zahm, Marilyn <Marily...@ssa.gov>
Date: Thu, Jul 5, 2018 at 2:54 PM
Subject: President's Newsletter
To:
July 5, 2018
PRESIDENT’S NEWSLETTER
Executive Orders
It appears that the Agency is getting ready to violate the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statue and abrogate our contract on this coming Monday.
The Agency has decided that the Executive Orders signed by the President on May 25, 2018, are laws and that they can cancel the federal statue passed by Congress. And, despite that the Executive Orders specify that contracts cannot be abrogated, the Agency has decided that it may implement them on July 9 without adhering to our contract terms.
The AALJ Board is committed to continuing to represent judges in the face of the Agency’s unlawful conduct. Therefore, Board members will use their leave time to handle grievances and arbitrations until we get a favorable ruling either from the US District Court (where we are represented by the IFPTE, our parent union) or an arbitrator; we will be filing a grievance if the Agency fails to comply with the terms of the collective bargaining agreement.
We have two arbitrations scheduled in July; both Region 1 Vice President Bill Ramsey and I will be taking leave, if necessary, to handle the arbitrations.
In the meantime, it is vitally important that you provide your Regional Vice President with your home email address, you cell phone number, and your home street address so that we may contact you if the Agency refuses to permit us use of Agency equipment, including the computer system.
In addition, employees may use duty time to prepare and handle their own grievances. Please prepare a first draft and send it to your Regional Vice President by way of home email. PLEASE DO NOT send PII to any home email address.
We ask LARs not to use any official time until further notice, as we may have a very limited amount of official time for all union officers to conduct all union business.
AALJ officers can still answer questions, but it would be preferable if you would send them to our home email addresses or leave a message on our cell phones. Please be sure to leave your cell phone number so that we may contact you.
My contact information is: vze2...@verizon.net; 716-830-4056.
I am confident that the Agency’s actions will prove ineffective in preventing the AALJ from representing you. If we all band together we will survive this grossly illegal attempt to wipe out our existence. This too shall pass.
I will keep you informed as to what is transpiring.
Unfair Labor Practices
Several judges have suggested that AALJ file unfair labor practices over the Agency’s conduct. The story set out below from the Government Executive publication explains why that avenue cannot be used at this time.
The Empty Chair at the Heart of the White House’s War on Unions
Although the Trump administration has taken several steps to try to reduce the power of federal employee unions in recent weeks, advocates and observers argue that the most critical piece of the White House’s workforce agenda is something President Trump has not done.
In May, Trump signed three executive orders that make it easier to fire federal employees and reduce the influence of federal employee unions. One of the orders seemingly opens the door to agencies unilaterally implementing new collective bargaining agreements—without union approval—if they deem union representatives to be stalling or otherwise negotiating in bad faith.
Under normal circumstances, if a union wishes to appeal a management decision to change policies governing the workplace, it simply files an unfair labor practice complaint with the Federal Labor Relations Authority, an independent agency tasked with mediating some labor-management disagreements.
But there is one problem with that process. The FLRA can only consider cases that have been vetted and brought to its members by the agency’s general counsel. And although Trump has nominated three members of the FLRA, all of whom have been confirmed, the general counsel post remains noticeably vacant.
Debra D’Agostino, a federal employment lawyer and founding partner of the Federal Practice Group, said she believes the collective bargaining order and lack of a general counsel are designed to work together to cripple labor groups.
“The executive order talks about how, if bargaining is delayed or impeded, the agency shall consider whether to file an unfair labor practice [against the union], which is effectively closed as an option, or to propose a new contract and implement that proposal,” she said. “It’s almost as if the executive order is designed to give agencies the right to basically not engage in collective bargaining and instead unilaterally implement proposals, because while there appears to be the option to file a ULP, that’s not a real option.”
A variety of federal labor unions have filed legal challenges against the White House’s executive orders, and a hearing for those lawsuits is scheduled for July 25. But as agencies begin to take action to implement the orders on their own, union officials are examining what administrative recourse they have, if any.
Earlier this year, unions filed unfair labor practices after the Agriculture Department unilaterally curbed the use of telework at the department from up to full time to a maximum of one day per week, and after the Education Department accused the American Federation of Government Employees of dragging its heels in ground rule negotiations for a new CBA and implemented a new edict, removing dozens of provisions outlining perks and employee protections.
But after the Housing and Urban Development Department informed its AFGE council last month that it plans to evict the union from agency office space despite the fact that labor and management were set to begin ground rule negotiations on a new CBA, union officials said they would have to reexamine their avenues for appeal.
“We’re considering our options,” said Holly Salamido, president of the AFGE HUD Council. “While this is clearly a ULP, and it’s prohibited by statute . . . the Trump administration has deliberately not filled the general counsel position, so no complaints can go forward.”
D’Agostino said that although the Trump administration has struggled to fill vacancies across government, the other appointments that have been made at FLRA, and the text of the executive order, suggest the vacancy is likely intentional.
“I absolutely believe [it’s intentional],” she said. “If you look at the government right now, I think about half the vacancies are just created by the fact that the Trump administration wasn’t prepared to take the reins [in January 2017], so there were no folks lined up. But I think at this point it’s pretty clear that there are several spaces that are being intentionally left vacant for the purpose of carrying out the administration’s goals. In this case, they clearly want to do away with federal employee unions.”
D’Agostino said that although ordinarily a union must exhaust all administrative processes before filing litigation, she believes labor groups will soon begin going straight to court, arguing that the lack of a FLRA general counsel automatically exhausts other avenues for redress.
“I suspect that the courts will be open to the notion that administrative remedies have been properly exhausted,” she said. “It’s sort of akin to what’s happened with the [Merit Systems Protections Board], where although there are regional offices with judges hearing cases, because there’s no quorum on the board, the appeals can’t be heard. So now we can just take those appeals to federal court for review, because that step in the administrative process is missing.”
DWI
Through collaboration with AALJ and judges, DWI was developed and – up until this week – had been a resounding success; most judges were using it.
Now the Agency has tampered with DWI and made it less user friendly.
Judges have been complaining about the loss of the standalone DWI feature. Many ALJs do not like that it is imbedded in HACPS and surrounded by multiple links in the header and to the left side. The new interface is too noisy and distracting and is the opposite of what DWI was intended to be: simple instructions without all the links and other bells and whistles found in eBB. These judges just want to bypass all of the nonessential features and go straight into DWI.
We have asked the Agency their plans to bring back the standalone DWI feature where it opens as a separate webpage - like we had before HACPS.
We are awaiting the reply.
OIG Audit of VHR Providers
Gale Stone, the Acting Inspector General, has responded to AALJ’s request for an audit of the Single Provider Contract for VHRs:
Thank you for the information regarding SSA’s Office of Hearings Operations Single Provider Contract initiative for Verbatim Hearing Reporter services. I provided the information to my Office of Audit and asked them to look into this initiative and the concerns you provided.
Please continue to send problems with the VHR contractors to Marty Pillion; given the complaints from the field, this initiative has turned out to be a roadblock for efficient operation.
In Memoriam
From the Acting Regional Chief in Region 8:
It is with great sadness that I inform you of the death of a member of our OHO family. Judge Jon Lawritson passed away on June 18, 2018, while on vacation with his family. Judge Lawritson was appointed as an SSA Administrative Law Judge in 1994 in the Los Angeles Downtown Hearing Office, and joined the Denver Hearing Office two years later. Judge Lawritson’s contributions to the Agency during his 24 years of dedicated public service were many and varied: In addition to directly impacting the lives of thousands of Americans, he served as Denver HOCALJ from September 2014 to February 2016, and he served as an instructor at new ALJ training, where he was highly regarded in particular for his discussion of Judicial Ethics. Prior to joining SSA, Judge Lawritson’s lengthy and distinguished legal career included serving as a judge in the Second Judicial District of Denver, as well as work as a mediator, and as a litigator in the areas of personal injury, malpractice, and product liability.
A service will be held in his memory on July 13, 2018, at St. Thomas More Catholic Church (8035 S. Quebec Street, Englewood, CO 80112) with a reception to follow at the same location. In addition, condolences may be sent to Judge Lawritson’s wife, Mary, at 966 Bramblewood Drive, Castle Rock, CO 80108.
Judge Lawritson was a well-respected judge, a mentor and a good friend to many. He will be greatly missed.
In Solidarity,
Marilyn Zahm
Dick Goodwin
From: Zahm, Marilyn <Marily...@ssa.gov>
Date: Sun, Jul 8, 2018 at 7:09 AM
Subject: President's Newsletter
To:
July 8, 2018
PRESIDENT’S NEWSLETTER
This will be my last newsletter on the Agency email for a while
The Agency has illegally, and without even the semblance of negotiations, abrogated our contract and violated the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute.
Friday afternoon, at 3 pm., the Agency advised me that it was unilaterally imposing the following conditions as of July 9th:
· Union representatives will not be authorized any payment for union travel (including local travel) starting July 9, 2018.
· Authorizations previously approved for travel starting July 9, 2018 will be canceled. This covers all union travel including negotiations, meetings, arbitration, etc. (Note: the Agency summarily cancelled my flight to Boston for an arbitration starting next week.)
· Union reps will be permitted to use a maximum of 100 hours of Taxpayer Funded Union Time between July 9 and September 30, 2018
· Request for Taxpayer Funded Union Time must be submitted via OUTTS in advance of use
· Taxpayer funded union time cannot be transferred between representatives.
· Each union will have a bank of hours to use between July 9 and September 30, 2018; AFGE 7500 hours, NTEU 400 hours and IFPTE 400 hours (this is over a 90% reduction in our contractual amount of 5500)
· If the 100-hour limit is reached or the bank is exhausted prior to any representative reaching his/her 100-hour limit, the representative will not be authorized any additional taxpayer funded union time, except for purposes covered by 5 USC 7131 (a) or (c).
· Time will not be authorized for filing union-management grievances or for representing an employee in a grievance presentation.
· Time will not be authorized for serving as the principle union representative or technical assistant in an arbitration hearing.
· All union space and equipment provided by the Agency will return to the Agency by COB July 31, 2018
· Analog lines will no longer be funded by the Agency after July 31, 2018. (This will eliminate our contractual use of fax machines.)
· Union reps, who are agency employees, will only be allowed to use Agency equipment, e.g. computers, email, and telephones, for representational activity in response to a management initiated action, e.g. union response to management notice of a formal discussion or union response to a call from an employee in a Weingarten interview.
We are taking action to enforce our contract but this will be quick. We are a part of a federal court action brought by, among others, IFPTE, our parent union. We may have an answer as to whether the Agency can enforce the Executive Orders when the Judge renders her opinion on the motion for summary judgement on July 26. In addition, the Board will be taking other steps to enforce our contract.
As I explained in my previous Newsletter, the AALJ will continue to operate and represent you. The Agency’s illegal tactics will not serve to weaken or eliminate this Union. Union officers will use their leave time and personal time for representation activities.
Please make sure that your Regional Vice President has you home email address so that we may continue to update you on matters affecting the ALJ Corps.
If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to contact your Regional Vice President (home email addresses are on the www.aalj.org website) or one of the following union officers:
Marilyn Zahm, President vze2...@verizon.net
Linda Stagno, Executive VP la...@optonline.net
Rita Eppler, Natl. Grievance Chair ritaeppler@ yahoo.com
And, this is a time for all of us to stand united. I have already heard from several judges who have decided to join the AALJ because they recognize that we may lose the one entity that stands behind the judges.
You can find more information at https://www.aalj.org/aalj-about/
Your dues fund the arbitrations we take on and any litigation that we may need to file to deal with Agency actions post-Lucia.
In solidarity,
Marilyn