National
Treasury
Employees 1750
H Street N.W. * Washington, D.C. 20006* (202) 572-5500 www.nteu.org
Union
For Immediate Release Contact:
Dina Long, Ext. 7058
January
18, 2006 Sheila McCormick, Ext. 7034
Mike Drapkin,
Ext. 7011
Highlights of NTEU litigation
developments for September through December 2005
Washington,
D.C.— NTEU led a coalition of unions in beating back efforts by
the government to narrow the scope of the injunction entered on August 12, 2005, by the U.S. District
Court for the District of Columbia
in the litigation over the new personnel regulations issued by the Department
of Homeland Security and the Office of Personnel Management. The judge had blocked implementation of the
labor relations and penalty mitigation aspects of the new human resources
management system. In late August, the
government moved for a modification of the injunction. On October
7, 2005, the court issued a decision agreeing with NTEU that the
invalidated provisions could not be severed from the rest of the labor
relations scheme. NTEU, et al. v. Chertoff, et al., Case No. 1:05 CV 00201 (D.D.C.). The government has now filed an appeal
with the D.C. Circuit. Under an
expedited briefing schedule, the briefing should be complete by the end of
February. NTEU, et al. v. Chertoff, et al., Nos. 05-5436, 05-5437 (D.C. Cir.).
NTEU
continues to fight the refusal by the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection
(CBP) to bargain over changes it is making to conditions of employment that it
claims are governed by the Revised National Inspectional Assignment
Policy. NTEU now has four separate
appeals in federal court. We filed the
opening brief in the first, and lead, case on December 12, challenging CBP’s unilateral changes to the length of rotations at the
bridges in the Port of El
Paso. NTEU v. FLRA, No. 05-1266 (D.C. Cir.). (See #8.) Two other cases in the D.C. Circuit
presenting similar issues are being held in abeyance pending decision in the El
Paso case.
Another
similar case is pending in the Ninth Circuit.
On July 20, 2005, the Department of
Energy (DOE) sustained a bid protest filed by NTEU to challenge its decision to
contract out its headquarters logistics function, when the private company’s
bid was $2.6 million more than the federal employee bid. Instead of declaring the federal employees
the winner, DOE issued an amended solicitation.
We filed a new bid protest to challenge the amended solicitation.
NTEU
is pursuing a lengthy arbitration involving the Securities and Exchange
Commission’s (SEC) “pay-for-performance” plan.
In a grievance filed in March 2004, NTEU argues that SEC has failed to
implement its plan in a “fair and non-discriminatory manner.” It alleges that SEC used a subjective process
for making award recommendations, resulting in African-American employees,
disabled employees, and older employees receiving a disproportionately small
number of step increases in November-December 2003. The arbitrator conducted hearings in November
and December, with a January date to follow.
On December 12, 2005, NTEU filed a
brief in a case in the D.C. Circuit in defense of an arbitral decision on
leave-swapping. The legal issue involves
the deference that the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) owes to an
arbitrator’s interpretation of a collective bargaining agreement. NTEU v. FLRA, No.
05-1230 (D.C. Cir.) (See #9.) NTEU has
appealed another decision of the FLRA involving the IRS’s refusal to honor
agreements on time-off awards for volunteers during tax-filing season. The briefing schedule in that case has not
yet been set. NTEU
v. FLRA, No. 05-1405 (D.C. Cir.). (See #4.) Finally, we are seeking review of an FLRA decision
upholding the removal of an employee of the Food and Nutrition Service for
aggressively asserting her contractual rights.
NTEU v. FLRA, No. 05-1315 (D.C. Cir.).
On September 8, 2005, we received a
favorable decision from an arbitrator on the remedies to be imposed in the wake
of an earlier arbitral conclusion that the IRS impermissibly imposed five
required areas of coursework for Revenue Agent applicants. The matter is currently pending before the
FLRA on exceptions.