April 2024 Federal Employment Law Training Group Newsletter
Exciting Times Ahead
Here at FELTG, we are excited, nay thrilled, to announce we’ll soon be launching a brand-new website that’s easier to navigate and more user-friendly. A few features you might enjoy:
- A new logo and color scheme.
- The ability to register and pay for a class directly from the website (yes, really!).
- An updated course catalog that can be filtered by training category, class length, and topic.
We’re aiming for an early summer launch and can’t wait to see what you think about it. Our hope is that it makes life a whole lot easier! In the meantime, you can register for all our upcoming classes, including Emerging Issues in Federal Employment Law, Conducting Effective Harassment Investigations, FLRA Law Week, and more.
In this month’s newsletter, we discuss cases involving employee sexual misconduct, formal discussions and Weingarten meetings, clean record agreements, the “coming and going” rule, and the dangers of changing an existing reasonable accommodation.
Take care,
Deborah J. Hopkins, FELTG President
‘Mere Flirtation’ with 16-Year-Old is NOT a Defense to Sexual Misconduct
By Deborah J. Hopkins, April 15, 2024 Buried in the trove of MSPB’s case inventory are hundreds of cases involving discipline of Federal employees. Maybe it’s because the Board members are working through an unprecedented backlog and are issuing cases at a dizzying...
The Good News: A Meeting CANNOT Be a Formal Discussion AND a Weingarten
By Ann Boehm, April 15, 2024 I teach a lot of classes where we discuss when a union representative has the right to attend a meeting between a representative of the agency and one or more bargaining unit employees. The statutory guidance on meetings is in 5 U.S.C. §...
The Clean Record Provision is Not Always So Clean
By Dan Gephart, April 15, 2024 If you’re thinking of using a clean record provision to settle a potentially expensive and litigious employment law situation, you’re not alone. But while clean record agreements are a popular alternative disciplinary tool, they are not...
Should I Stay or Should I Go? Either Way, Workers’ Comp Rule Applies
By Frank Ferreri, April 15, 2024 For those of us who don’t work remotely 100 percent of the time, getting to and from work, with possible stops along the way, comes with the risk of getting injured. To handle the “what ifs” in the world of going to and coming home...
Changing an Existing Accommodation is STILL a Terrible Idea
By Deborah J. Hopkins, April 15, 2024 In this newsletter, we’ve talked about the “coming and going rule” and an agency’s responsibility in the workers’ comp arena. In previous newsletters, we’ve discussed the dangers of altering an existing accommodation. On a related...