Message from Dorothy James, District 7 NVP

October 9th, 2018 | Posted by admin in Did you know? | Events | Rally | Wear Red Day - (0 Comments)

We may have won our executive order lawsuit, but the fight isn't over. The administration is appealing the judge's decision, and is actively working to put the union-busting, democracy-busting executive orders back in place.

We're all in on fighting for workers' rights. We need you and your coworkers to show management and the administration that our union isn't going anywhere. Make sure to wear red EVERY Wednesday.

When management and the administration see worksites full of government workers wearing red, it will be a powerful display of our strength, solidarity, and willingness to fight the administration's outrageous attempts to bust our union and break our democracy.

It is up to us to keep working for what is right - and to do that, our union has to be all in. That's why we're wearing Red for Feds every Wednesday, and sharing pictures of our red on social media with the hashtag #RedForFeds.

Please make sure that you are not on government time or government property when you take or share your photos. If your employment requires a specific uniform or dress policy, be mindful of compliance. The wearing of red is not for, or against, any candidate or party, and is not a violation of the Hatch Act.

By joining together and raising our voices as a union family, we know we can do great things. Thank you for all that you do.

If you have any questions or would like to talk about more ways you or your local can get involved, don't hesitate to e-mail us at district7@afge.org.

In Solidarity,

Dorothy James

National Vice-President

American Federation of Government Employees

District 7

When is the Next Union Meeting?

union meetings

Monthly Membership Meetings

2nd Wednesday of each Month.

Time: 6:00 p.m.

Location: 600 W. Madison, Chicago IL 60661

Room: HWSSC Conference Room #1- 1st FL.

NEXT MEMBERSHIP MEETING

Wednesday October 10th, 2018

Attacks on Government Employees – Round II

September 25th, 2018 | Posted by admin in Court Ruling | Did you know? | Executive Orders - (0 Comments)

Trump Administration Appeals Court Ruling On Workforce EOs

By Erich Wagner (Government Executive)
5:55 PM ET- September 25, 2018

The Justice Department on Tuesday filed a notice that it would appeal a recent court decision that struck down three controversial workforce executive orders President Trump signed earlier this year to make it easier to fire federal workers and reduce the influence of federal employee unions.

The case will go to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

In a notice filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Assistant Attorney General Joseph Hunt said the administration will seek to overturn the August decision by U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, which found that the key provisions of the executive orders were unlawful.

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ATTACKS TO FEDERAL EMPLOYEES CONTINUE

September 13th, 2018 | Posted by admin in Did you know? | News | Your Rights - (0 Comments)

Heads up federal employee friends, Congress is trying to pass another BS law designed to hurt us. Its called the MERIT ACT, short for Modern Employment Reform Improvement, and Transformation Act. Call your reps today 866-356-0201 to tell your Member of Congress that this is unfair and unproductive, and to oppose the MERIT Act.

Under the MERIT Act:

You would no longer be able to appeal adverse actions and unfair reductions in force actions through the grievance procedures. The only venue for you to appeal these unfair actions would be the severely under-resourced Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), which reviews similar cases for the entire federal workforce of 2 million employees. The agency’s decision becomes final if the MSPB does not issue a decision within 30 days.

You will not have enough time to mount a credible defense if you are accused of performance or disciplinary issues, because the bill drastically shortens the response time.

You can be fired at any point in your first two years on the job, for any reason.

You may be forced to repay a bonus or award if the agency head claims he or she was unaware of a conduct or performance issues when you received the payment.

To stay involved and updated on what AFGE is doing to protect your rights, text AFGE to 225568 from your personal phone (never your government phone) to subscribe to text updates.

AFGE WINS

September 12th, 2018 | Posted by admin in Court Ruling | Did you know? | Solidarity | Your Rights - (0 Comments)

Democracy Wins as Court Strikes Down Trump’s Anti-Worker Executive Order

AFGE applauds ruling that administration illegally gutted workers’ rights, violated labor contracts

WASHINGTON – In a landmark decision, a federal judge has ruled that President Trump violated the U.S. Constitution and laws providing checks and balances in the federal government by attempting to deny more than 2 million federal workers their legal right to representation.

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled late last night that the Trump administration’s May 25executive order on official time violated the 1stAmendment to the U.S. Constitution and the separation of powers as established in law.

The American Federation of Government Employees, which was the first union to challenge President Trump’s executive orders in court, applauded the judge’s ruling.

“President Trump’s illegal action was a direct assault on the legal rights and protections that Congress specifically guaranteed to the public-sector employees across this country who keep our federal government running every single day,” AFGE National President J. David Cox Sr. said.

“We are heartened by the judge’s ruling and by the huge outpouring of support shown to federal workers by lawmakers from both parties, fellow union workers, and compassionate citizens across the country,” Cox said. “Our members go to work every single day to serve the American people, and they deserve all the rights and protections afforded to them by our founding fathers.”

AFGE, the largest union representing federal government employees, filed two lawsuits challenging President Trump’s executive orders. The first lawsuit challenged the executive order on official time as a violation of the right to freedom of association guaranteed by the First Amendment, and as exceeding the president’s authority. The second lawsuit charged that the remaining two orders exceed the president’s authority under the U.S. Constitution by violating the separation of powers and exceeding current law.

The impact of these executive orders began being felt months before they were even issued, as the Department of Education in March threw out the contract covering 3,900 federal employees represented by AFGE and implemented its own illegal management edict that strips workers of their union rights, a precursor to what was to come weeks later when President Trump issued the three union-busting, anti-federal worker executive orders. Since the executive orders were signed May 25, other agencies including the Social Security Administration and Department of Veterans Affairs have issued similar edicts in an attempt to eradicate unions from the federal workplace and deny workers their legal right to representation.

“Now that the judge has issued her decision, I urge all agencies that have attempted to enforce this illegal executive order to restore all previously negotiated contracts and to bargain in good faith with employee representatives on any future changes as required under the law,” Cox said.

AFGE LOCAL 1395 is located at:

600 W. Madison - 6th Fl

Chicago IL 60661

Agatha Joseph 312-575-5612---President

Cheryl Bellamy-Bonner 312-575-5614 - Exec. Vice President

Main Office 312-575-5619

Your Legal Health

September 8th, 2018 | Posted by admin in Benefits | Did you know? - (0 Comments)

Are you legally healthy? Chances are your answer is "What?" "I guess so." "How would I know?" or some variation of all three.

Legal health is not a generally accepted concept. Preventive medicine and preventive dentistry are well-established. Periodic dental and physical examinations have been recommended for decades. Financial planning has gained wide acceptance in recent years, but preventive law is still an unfamiliar term (even to many lawyers) and "legal checkup" and "legal health" are even less well known.

But it's only a matter of time before all three are overworked buzzwords, because the idea behind preventive law, legal health and legal checkups is sound:

Expert evaluation of your legal situation (legal health) now can prevent many legal problems from developing later.

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JULY 25–DAY OF UNITY–WEAR RED

Union Busting Is a Threat to Our Democracy

Our union held a conference call with reporters July 12 to discuss the administration’s outrageous Executive Orders that seek to undermine America’s union and workforce.

Union officials at the Social Security Administration and others are being stripped of access to vital tools that help us represent working people as we are required to do by law, including telephones, computers, Internet access, and even bulletin boards.

Barri Sue Bryant, president of AFGE Local 2908 representing SSA employees in Philadelphia, told reporters that the Trump administration is making it nearly impossible to represent employees.

“They told us yesterday that they won’t allow us to use leave without pay, or only in extremely limited conditions, to do representational duties,” she said.

The executive orders have caused even more chaos at severely understaffed federal prisons, which have been struggling to respond to the influx of immigrant detainees.

“Their attempts to silence us are creating nothing but chaos in the prison system,” said John Kostelnik, president of AFGE Local 3969 which represents Bureau of Prisons employees in Victorville, Calif.

Undermining our democratic values

The Trump administration has gone from being out of control to a serious threat to our democracy.

While poll after poll has shown the American people overwhelmingly support labor unions, the weak Trump administration is being dictated by powerful special interests to do the dirty work for them. The Heritage Foundation, a fake think-tank funded by the likes of the Koch brothers, are openly pushing for policies that are bad for working people but good for businesses. A former Heritage employee now sits on Trump’s Domestic Policy Council and helps craft anti-worker policies like hiring freezes and retirement cuts.

Our union exists to protect the merit systems, ensure justice, equality, and workers’ voice – all important factors for our government to serve and protect the American people. We make sure researchers, scientists, doctors, nurses, and other public servants have the tools and resources they need to do their jobs. But this administration is showing zero leadership in helping them do their jobs better.

Red for Feds Day of Action

Our union has filed lawsuits against the administration and has been joined by other unions and even members of Congress who are disgusted by this administration’s behavior.

The hearing is set for July 25, which is our Red for Feds Day of Action. We will gather in Washington, D.C. and take action in our communities nationwide. Join us and RSVP here.

An all-out war on the U.S. labor movement

The three executive orders are part of a larger campaign that has been going on for decades to purge unions and workers’ ability to demand a safe, just workplace.

Acting on behalf of business interests, politicians and officials from all levels all the way up to the Supreme Court are rewriting rules and laws to help enrich the wealthiest 1% while keeping wages low and health care and pensions close to non-existent for the rest of us.

The wealthy and business interests have a reason to continue to chip away at the labor movement: economists have linked the decline of unions to wage stagnation and rising inequality, as workers lose the bargaining power to demand better pay.

Here are a few examples of what they have recently done:

Janus v. AFSCME

In an attempt on AFGE’s D.C. locals and other unions representing state and local public employees,

the Supreme Court ruled in Janus v. the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) allowing non-union members who benefit from union work like higher pay and better benefits to not have to pay their fair share.

Before the decision, non-union members were already able to opt out of paying for the union’s political and organizing activities. They only paid for the cost of collective bargaining which they benefited. This divide-and-conquer tactic seeks to force unions to do all the work for free for everybody until it runs out of money and collapse, bringing workers’ rights along with it.

The Janus ruling overturns its 1977 decision in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, which allowed public-sector unions to collect fair-share fees from workers who have not joined the union yet benefit from the union’s contract and other services.

Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis

Prior to Janus, the Supreme Court had issued another decision that helped advance corporate interests. The high court ruled that companies can force employees into lengthy and expensive one-on-one arbitration procedures instead of allowing them to pursue class-action grievances.

Right-to-work-for-less laws

Acting on behalf of business interests, politicians have managed to pass the right-to-work-for-less laws in 28 states to undermine workers and their unions in the private sector.

U.S. labor law requires that unions represent all employees in the workplace they have unionized. Unions are allowed to collect a fair share fee from non-members who benefit from union work – higher wages, better benefits, and a safer workplace. Right-to-work-for-less laws allow non-members in the private sector to benefit from union work without having to pay for the fee. These right-to-work-for-less laws have hurt union finances and ability to bargain for better wages and benefits – exactly what businesses want.

Wisconsin

Bankrolled by the likes of the Koch brothers, newly elected Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker in 2011 launched a crusade against the middle class. Walker signed into law a bill that stripped state workers most of their collective bargaining rights. It prohibited public sector unions from bargaining over health coverage, pensions, hours, safety issues, sick leave, and vacations. The only thing unions could negotiate was base pay, but that was also limited to the rate of inflation. The law also required employees to pay more towards their pensions and repealed a fair-share union fee requirement. It ended automatic union dues collection by the state and required the unions to recertify annually. Union membership in Wisconsin dropped sharply as workers’ take-home pay got cut and unions could no longer help them as much.

Teachers’ strikes

Politicians and privatizers’ war on public school teachers has been raging on for decades. The teachers are overworked, underpaid, and very much vilified. While states freely cut taxes for the wealthy, also cut too are teachers’ pay and retirement. That’s why from West Virginia to Oklahoma, teachers went on strike and took to the streets to demand a raise and respect. We stand behind these teachers and condemn these irresponsible politicians.

We must fight back

The Trump administration is a threat to our core values of democracy and justice.

Visit www.afge.org/fightback for steps we can take to stop it. Also join our Day of Action on July 25 in communities nationwide.

AFGE Sues President Trump

June 6th, 2018 | Posted by admin in Did you know? | Political | Solidarity | Your Rights - (0 Comments)

AFGE Sues President Trump Over Executive Order

On May 30, 2018, AFGE sued the Trump administration in response to an executive order Donald Trump issued that aims to deny workers their legal right to representation at the worksite.

On May 25, President Trump signed three executive orders that chip away at due process and collective bargaining rights for federal employees. A third executive order, which impedes employee representation at the job site, is the focus of the lawsuit. The order seeks to rewrite portions of the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute, which governs labor relations in the federal civilian workplace. In particular, the order seeks to restrict ‘official time’ – the hours federal employees who are union volunteers use for legally mandated representation of their coworkers in the workplace, such as filing a grievance on retaliation or unfair termination.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, challenges the executive order as violating the right to freedom of association guaranteed by the First Amendment, and as exceeding the president’s authority under the Constitution of the United States.

Congress passed these laws to guarantee workers a collective voice in resolving workplace issues and improving the services they deliver to the public every day – whether it’s caring for veterans, ensuring our air and water are safe, preventing illegal weapons and drugs from crossing our borders, or helping communities recover from hurricanes and other disasters.

The United States is not a dictatorship. No president should be able to undo a law he doesn’t like through administrative fiat. AFGE will not stand by and let this administration willfully violate the Constitution to score political points.

How Federal Employees Are Using Official Time

People who know how official time is actually used at various agencies are stunned by the administration’s twist of facts and intentional assault on our government’s workforce and democracy itself. Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle have long approved the use of official time because it helps improve agency operations and make federal agencies a better place to work. But anti-union forces and powerful special interests are not interested in that.

The truth about official time

Official time is a practice in which federal managers and employees work together to make government more efficient, productive, and just. All federal employees, whether they belong to a union or not, are guaranteed the right to fair representation. Employees who volunteer to serve as union representatives are allowed certain hours in their work days to carry out those representational activities.

Contrary to what the administration wants people to believe, official time is never used to conduct internal union business, such as soliciting members, holding internal union meetings, electing union officers, or engaging in partisan political activities.

Here are 5 examples of how employees are using official time:

Implement new directives, laws, programs.

Official time is used to go over new laws and regulations that are complex and ever changing. If employees don’t understand these directives and laws, they cannot implement them. This is especially important at a massive agency like the Department of Veterans Affairs that serves 9 million veterans every year and where a single mistake could mean life and death. Read about how a nurse from Minnesota used official time to help her hospital implement a new complex directive on prescription drug here. In Houston, Texas, employees used overtime to work with management on a new program to improve the adjudication of compensation claims filed by veterans seeking benefits at the Veterans Benefits Administration’s Regional Office. As a result, the accuracy rate for claims improved from 74% to 90%, meaning veterans got their correct benefits more quickly.

Create safe working conditions.

Official time is used to help identify health and safety hazards in the workplace. When the workplace is safe, workers tend to use less sick leave and workers’ compensation benefits. At the Bureau of Prisons, for example, employees used official time to successfully negotiate equipping federal correctional officers with pepper spray to keep officers safe on the job. Keeping government facilities safe also prevents injuries to the American people who visit a government office.

Uphold democracy and save taxpayers money on legal fights.

Due process is crucial in a democratic society, and official time is used to protect employees from discrimination on the basis of race, gender, age, religion, sexual orientation and other factors unrelated to their job performance. It saves taxpayers money by helping resolve workplace problems before they escalate into costly, time-consuming litigation. Employees also use official time to address various workplace incidents, such as the one in which a noose was placed on the chair of an African-American worker at the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia.

Report waste, fraud, and abuse.

Federal employees take the oath of office toserve the American people and protect the Constitution. These employees use official time to blow the whistle on wrongdoing, such as VA management’s attempt to cover up an outbreak of Legionnaires disease that killed at least six veterans and sickened 16 others in Pittsburgh.

Negotiate contracts.

Managers and employees use official time to negotiate a labor contract. Having an agreed-upon labor-management contract benefits both the employer and employees because a contract establishes an agreement that sets working conditions and serves as a reference when disagreements arise. It makes the costs associated with employment more predictable and reduces employee turnover and the costs associated with it.

Official time costs very little

Compared to other expenses, official time costs very little. According to the administration’s own numbers, official time cost $174.8 million in fiscal year 2016, compared to $200 billion the Department of Defense spends annually on service contracts despite the fact that contractors cost two to three times more than federal civilian employees doing the same job. $174.8 million is also minuscule compared to the recent massive tax cut given to corporations, which is projected to cost the U.S. Treasury more than $100 billion in lost revenue this year, or $1.3 trillion over 10 years.

What you can do right now

If you believe it’s wrong for the administration to cut the time that employees use to make our government better, speak up by joining AFGE or ask your coworkers to join if you already are a member. By joining, we’re sending a message to the administration that we reject this disgraceful assault on our government and its workforce.

AFGE is also urging our members to write to your lawmakers now and tell them to issue a public statement supporting federal workers and condemning these baseless attacks. You can send a letter to your members of Congress here.

What is Union Time? Read on Break or Lunch

May 31st, 2018 | Posted by admin in Did you know? | JOIN AFGE | Official Time - (0 Comments)

What's Official Time?

That means: When you are on Union TIME

Official time ensures federal employees have a voice at the worksite – including workers who belong to the union and those who do not.

Employee representatives use official time to enhance working conditions, such as establishing telework policies, improving workplace safety, and arranging for training and educational opportunities.

Official time also is used to protect employees from discrimination on the basis of race, gender, age, sexual orientation and other factors unrelated to their job performance.

It saves taxpayers money by helping resolve workplace conflicts as early as possible, without resorting to expensive and time-consuming administrative or legal fights.

Official time is a win for agencies and the customers they serve, since it gives unions and managers a forum for discussing ways to improve service delivery.

Download Official Time: Time Well Spent

Official Time Works for Taxpayers and Federal Employees

Union representatives used official time to work with management on a new program to improve the adjudication of compensation claims filed by veterans seeking benefits at the Veterans Benefits Administration’s Regional Office in Houston, Texas; the accuracy rate for claims improved from 74% to 90% as a result, meaning veterans got their correct benefits more quickly.
Union representatives at the U.S. Army’s Fort McCoy in Wisconsin used official time to meet with management on how to mitigate the impact of agency downsizing on employees and their families; as a result, 80 employees were successfully placed in other positions on the installation, saving the Army relocation costs.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons launched a pilot program to equip some correctional officers with pepper spray following prolonged negotiations with AFGE representatives that occurred using official time; these officers now are better able to protect themselves and other employees from dangerous inmates.
Kathleen Dahl, president of the AFGE Local representing 2,500 employees in the Pittsburgh VA Health Care System, used official time to blow the whistle on management’s attempts to cover up an outbreak of Legionnaires disease that killed six veterans and sickened 16 others.

Official Time Q&A

Click here to learn more and answer common questions about Official Time.

Spread the Word

Some Want to Cripple Your Union Flyer

April 25th, 2018 | Posted by admin in Benefits | Did you know? | FEEA - (0 Comments)

Contribute to AFGE Members through FEEA

AFGE members are on the ground helping survivors of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. AFGE partnered with the Federal Employees Education and Assistance Fund (FEEA) to manage disaster relief efforts and assist government employees as they recover. The fund is made up of donations by AFGE affiliates which are earmarked exclusively for AFGE members in need of disaster assistance.