NTEU Documents on Grievance Administration
EDO Open Door Meeting Rejection
Dale Yeilding, NTEU Chapter President's Commission Statement
NTEU Grievance on Agency's Poor Administration of Workplace Grievances
NTEU March-2007 Email to all NRC employees >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Dale Yeilding, NTEU Chapter 208 President, made a statement (linked below) at the end of the recent Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) Commission briefing. He applauded the Agency for it's employee appeal processes on technical issues, but criticized Human Resource's administration of the grievance process for employee appeal of workplace issues.The Differing Professional Opinion process, and the new Non-concurrence process, are excellent mechanisms for employees to appeal their technical concerns associated with the agency's mission. The NTEU Grievance process is the mechanism for employees to appeal their workplace concerns. The agency's administrative challenge is to have a grievance meeting within 10 days and render a decision within the following 20 days. Dale's statement to the Commission called for a grievance-tracking system that would hold Human Resources accountable to give employees their statutory right to present a workplace concern and receive a timely decision on the matter. The agency now views they can terminate a grievance without even providing a meeting for presentation of the concern. The EDO rejected a recent appeal of this new Human Resource grievance termination policy. The Union will now rely on litigation to force the agency to provide a timely forum to resolve workplace issues.
NTEU
- EDO
Open Door Meeting on Grievance Administration
Luis Reyes, Dale Yeilding, Randy Sullivan
January 24, 2007
Issue
Article 51.4 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) states:
"The purpose of the grievance procedure is to provide an orderly means for resolving legitimate disputes at the lowest administrative level in a way that is fair and satisfactory to the grievant, the Union, and NRC...
Law
5 USC 7121 states:
"Any negotiated grievance procedure ... shall include procedures that assure .... an employee the right to present a grievance on the employee's own behalf, and assure the exclusive representative the right to be present during the grievance proceeding"
Grievance Time Line
15 days for NTEU to file a grievance
10 days for NRC & NTEU to meet
20 days for NRC to render a decision
10 days for NTEU to appeal the decision
Time Extension
Article 51.18 of the CBA states:
"The parties agree that by mutual consent the time limits in this Article may be extended; and/or any step of this grievance may be waived. Failure on the part of a Step official to observe the time limits for any step shall have the effect of a grievance being denied at that step, at which point the grievance may be appealed to the next step. Failure on the part of the grievant to observe time limits for any step shall have the effect of terminating the grievance."
Human Resource New Interpretation
Language in dispute from HR email:
"On Monday, July 17, 2006, I [Human Resource Specialist] received a grievance notification dated, Nov 10, 2005, on behalf of (grievant's name removed). Management failed to meet it's 10 day time limit for having the Step A meeting, then the union failed to appeal to Step B, timely. So, according to the CBA, 51.18, the grievance is terminated."
Requested Solution
Employees and NTEU be given their statutory right to present a grievance for resolution at the lowest administrative level. The agency will not terminate a grievance based upon the failure to meet or render a decision in a timely manner.
EDO, HR and OGC rejected
NTEU's requested solution
on March 8, 2007 necessitating formal litigation of the agency's new practice.
UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
BRIEFING ON EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY (EEO)
PROGRAMS
+++++
WEDNESDAY
DECEMBER 13, 2006
+++++
The Commission convened at 9:30 a.m., Dale E. Klein, Chairman presiding.
Modified for clarity presenting just the NTEU Chapter President's
Statement from Dale Yeilding
...
CHAIRMAN KLEIN: Thank you. I think all of you should be proud of the
accomplishments that have been made in these programs. It takes effort and I think
you've done a great job. Before we go to the questions, I think Dale Yeilding will make some comments from the
union and then we'll go to the Q&A.
MR. YEILDING: Thank you very much, Chairman and Commissioners and those in the audience. Sorry for being behind a post here. There's not enough seats at the table, I guess. My name is Dale Yeilding. I'm the President of our local chapter of the National Treasury Employees Union and I'm glad to have this opportunity. Actually it's a statutory right under 5 USC 7114 for the union to be able to make presentations at formal meetings, but I'm sure I'm welcomed and don't have to exercise statutory rights.
For those that don't know, the mission of the National Treasury Employees Union is to ensure every Federal employee is treated with dignity and respect. And, of course, when I make comments here I try to make them brief, try to stay under five minutes even though I have 10. I'm going to focus my comments today strictly on employee appeal. To give you a little foundation and background before I go into my main issue. I'm going to start off by applauding the agency before I reverse my position and begin to criticize. Employee appeal processes - the agency has taken wide strides forward in progress in the Differing Professional Opinion program and a new program for non-concurrence. And of course, this provides employees an excellent basis and opportunity to appeal technical mission-related decisions of which, the union is not involved. I'm not saying that I would want to be, but that's just not a statutory right for the union to get involved in mission-related activities.
Another avenue of employee appeal of course, is equal employment opportunity, which is the subject of this meeting. The union has an opportunity to be involved later on in that program after the EEO counselor has spent 30 days with an employee with an equal employment opportunity discrimination case.
The area for employee appeal that the union is involved, is the grievance process.
Now, I'm always tasked to establish a nexus with my comments here because this is an Equal Employment Opportunity briefing. This should ensure that I don't go off on some union issue that maybe isn't related to these actual proceedings. Well, these proceedings are based on the agency establishing a diverse workforce and recruiting and retaining a diverse workforce. The recruitment part of that has been well presented at this meeting, but to retain the benefits of a diverse workforce after we've recruited them, we have to have a good place to work. The union, I view, is very instrumental in keeping this place a good place to work and I think last year, we were credited with being the number three best place to work in the Federal government. So that almost opens the door for me to talk about any issue that keeps this place a good place to work. So there's my nexus. I'm just going to be talking about the employee grievance process.
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: Are you practicing law without a license?
[LAUGHTER]
COMMISSIONER MERRIFIELD: Because if you are, Commissioner McGaffigan does all the time.
[LAUGHTER]
MR. YEILDING: Okay, what does an employee grieve? The employee can grieve any complaint concerning any matter relating to their employment here at their workplace.
What does that involve? Where do I see most employees that have problems that we get involved with either using informal processes or the formal grievance process?
Work schedules, appraisals, merit selection, discipline, work at home, family medical leave, annual leave, overtime assignments, training, rotations, awards. There are a litany of employee appeal topics here at the NRC - I won't go through anymore, but this is a summary of what the grievance process encompasses.
EEO complaints: They're based on discrimination or alleged discrimination, and involve a complaint where an employee has alleged the agency has done something wrong, such as a merit selection or appraisal concern, The EEO complaint, identifies how they have been wronged and how they're basing it on discrimination. That same complain, if you strike out discrimination, could be a grievance. So a lot of issues if you don't allege or don't prevail in proving it was based on discrimination could be a grievance through the National Treasury Employees Union's grievance process.
The grievance process: The statutorily basis is 5 USC 7121, which states, any negotiated grievance procedure shall include procedures that assure the employee the right to present a grievance on the employee's own behalf and assure the exclusive representative, NTEU, the right to be present during the grievance proceedings. So it's a statutory basis for giving the employees the right to step up and voice a complaint. Of course, we have Article 51 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement which is the controlling procedure.
There are two aspects of an employee appeal or a grievance: I'm going to relate it to an over pressurized tank and a relief valve here in this technical industry. A relief valve goes off and reduces the pressure of a tank and that's an immediate relief of the over pressure situation. An employee with a concern likes to release their emotional stress and sometimes just talking about it, either to me in the union office or to a co-worker or to their supervisor, resolves a good portion of the problem, the release of the emotional stress. The grievance process in a manner provides a mechanism for this release.
But later on you go back to the over pressurized tank and you do a root cause analysis. You determine the reason for the over pressurization, was it an operator error, some technical mishap or malfunction of equipment, and then you correct it to prevent reoccurrence. In the grievance process: You do a study. The grievance decision-maker goes back, does some research. Was there merit to the employees claim? Let's try to right the situation and let's prevent reoccurrence and correct whatever initiated the grievance. So keep in mind there's two aspects to a grievance. One, let's give the employee some emotional relief to vent and let's correct the situation if the employee prevails to prevent recurrence.
Some history for the time line of grievance. You've got to have time lines on things because you can't have employees filing grievances on concerns 10 and 15 years old, so we put a time line on the grievance process, 15 days. The employee has got to get in the union office within 15 days, file a grievance complaint. Management then has a time line - 10 days to meet. After the meeting, management has a time line of 20 days to render a decision. The issue I'm here today is management's 10 and 20 day time line. The union very rarely holds management's feet to the fire on meeting within 10 days. We realize personnel situations may not rise to the level of importance of mission-related issues and managers may not obtain a meeting in conjunction with the Human Resource staff in 10 days; or in 20 days; or in two or six months. I've tasked HR to establish a tracking system to at least be aware of the time limit, not necessarily holding their feet to the fire. I was denied a joint grievance tracking system. I've establish an internal union tracking system of my own, but still it doesn't have any mechanism for me to demand a grievance meeting for an employee within 10 days or more.
The issue at hand here as I come to a conclusion, is a new interpretation by the agency of missing these deadlines. And I say new, because I've been a steward here at the agency for over 12 years, managing grievances, leading the chapter as President for six years, and this new interpretation is only as a result of a year-and-a-half to two year change in senior management of Human Resources.
The new interpretation is this - HR views that when they miss their deadline, their 10 days to meet or their 20 days to render a decision, that the union has an obligation [emphasis added] to appeal to the next step. Neither NTEU nor the Agency has ever taken this position in my 12 years of representing employees. NTEU was always forgiving and let the agency have as much time as needed to give employees their day to vent and present their grievance. HR further miss-interprets, that if the union does not appeal to the next step, whether it be a step B grievance or arbitration which involves litigation and resource expenditure, that if the union does not appeal to the next step, that the grievance is denied [emphasis added].
So I task the Commission to reverse this new HR grievance denial mentality, by tasking HR to establish a grievance tracking system and report metrics of grievances at these twice a year EEO briefings.
I welcome your questions or comments.
CHAIRMAN KLEIN: Thank you. Well, as we have noted, the agency is going through quite a transition with growth and I think HR and all of you at the table have worked hard for diversity. And so, I appreciate all your hard work. And now we'll have the Commissioner's questions, starting with Commissioner McGaffigan...
-------------------- End of EEO Commission Briefing Transcript [NTEU Statement] -------------------
5 USC 7121: "Any negotiated grievance procedure ... shall include procedures that assure .... an employee the right to present a grievance on the employee's own behalf, and assure the exclusive representative the right to be present during the grievance proceeding"
NTEU Grievance Filed on August 14, 2006 -------------------------------------------------
Angela Bolduc,
NTEU is filing an institutional Step A grievance due to the agency's misinterpretation of the Collective
Bargaining Agreement (CBA) and the violation of the associated provision of the law.
The agency sent an email (Rajnic to Yeilding) on July 21. 2006 which the Union received the following week. This grievance is filed timely based upon that email. The agency claims that a grievance is terminated if not appealed by the union as a result of the agency's lack of scheduling a grievance meeting for the presentation of the issue (CBA Article 51.18). NTEU's literal interpretation of this CBA provision is that the Union has an option to appeal since the contract language uses the word "may" be appealed. In no way does the Union have an obligation to appeal a grievance to the next step when the agency misses a time deadline. The law provides a employee or the union the right to present during a grievance proceeding, [5 USC 7121]. The agency's misinterpretation of the contract and termination of a grievance under these circumstances removes this employee right and thus violates this provision of the law.
The agency stated in an email from Rajnic (agency) to Yeilding (NTEU) dated July 21, 2006: "On Monday, July 17, 2006, I received a grievance notification dated, Nov 10, 2005, on behalf of (a grievant), [name removed]. Management failed to meet it's 10 day time limit for having the Step A meeting, then the union failed to appeal to Step B, timely. So, according to the CBA, 51.18, the grievance is terminated."
As a remedy NTEU requests:
1) The agency notify the grievant from the July 21, 2006 email that the grievance was not terminated.
2) The agency document it's understanding that all employees and NTEU have a right to present grievances and grievances are not terminated due to the agency's negligence to meet for the purposes of the grievance presentation.
3) The agency strive to schedule timely grievance meetings in the future.
4) The agency develop a method to track the timeliness of grievance meetings and grievance decisions.
5) Any other remedy an Arbitrator may deem appropriate.
Please contact me to schedule a Step A grievance meeting at 301-415-3600.
---Dale Yeilding, NTEU Chapter President
Reference CBA:
51.18 Time Extension
"The parties agree that by mutual consent the time limits in this Article may be extended; and/or any step
of this grievance may be waived. Failure on the part of a Step official to observe the time limits for any
step shall have the effect of a grievance being denied at that step, at which point the grievance may
[emphasis added] be appealed to the next step. Failure on the part of the grievant to observe time limits
for any step shall have the effect of terminating the grievance."