10 Things Every Manager and Supervisor Must Know if the Organization’s Employees are Represented by a Union: Part One
Are You a manager that deals with organized employees? Take this quiz and test your knowledge of labor relations.
Current news and events impacting the federal workforce, both current federal employees and federal retirees.
Are You a manager that deals with organized employees? Take this quiz and test your knowledge of labor relations.
President Bush has nominated a new General Counsel for the FLRA and a new Under Secretary for Management at DHS.
Congressman Boehner has been awarded damages against Congressman McDermott. McDermott has been ordered to pay the other Congressman more than $1 million in attorneys’ fees.
The F fund in the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) is sometimes the Rodney Dangerfield of the TSP funds–It doesn’t get any respect. The G fund is the safe haven; the I fund is used by market timers to try and juice up their returns, the S fund is good for fast growth as we are coming out of a recession and the C fund is the old stock market standby that most people think of when they want to put some of their retirement funds into stocks. But what is the F fund good for?
Marriage, divorce, remarriage and federal retirement benefits are a volatile mix. The money available is finite, there is often considerable emotion involved, and someone is going to get more money while another person may get less. In this case, wife number one thought she should get the maximum survivor annuity from her former husband. And, in this case, wife number one is the winner.
CSRS employees often ask themselves the following two questions about civilian service as they get close to retirement. “Should I deposit money to cover temporary time early in my career?” The answer may vary depending on your circumstances. Here is an explanation.
A federal employee of 18 years, the author recently used an out of network doctor for a family member “because there were not any in network doctors available at the medical center we selected” even though the facility as a network hospital. The result was that, despite having insurance, the out of pocket expenses were significant. The article was written to that others could benefit from his experience and to encourage federal employees to research and carefully consider options when choosing a medical insurance provider.
The culture of government has changed in the past 20 years and these changes have impacted how Uncle Sam selects its higher graded employees. Federal employees in GS grades 12 – 15 used to be selected from within the existing workforce. But, just as the Edsel, the hula hoop. and the “company man” have faded from American life, so has the practice of always using internal promotions to fill higher graded positions.
The Social Security Board of Trustees today released its annual report on the financial health of the Social Security Trust Funds. While the key dates for program costs exceeding tax revenues and Trust Fund exhaustion remain unchanged, the 2008 Trustees Report shows improvement in the projected long-term financial status of the Social Security program.
“Some aggrieved federal employees like to sue co-workers and supervisors in their individual capacity. In most cases this is basically a waste of time.”