February 2022 Federal Employment Law Training Group Newsletter

The Fallout of Prohibited Substance Use

I’m an Olympics nerd, and proud of it. Every four years (or five, if there’s a global pandemic) I tune in to watch the greatest athletes in the world compete for the gold. Summer, winter, swimming, snowboard half pipe, beach volleyball, Super G, track & field, figure skating – I’m here for it all.

An Olympics cycle never goes by without suspicions or actual findings of athletes who fail drug tests, and Beijing 2022 is no exception. But, Olympic athletes aren’t the only ones who sometimes use banned substances; did you hear about the Federal employee who claimed the two big brownies he ate at a barbecue were laced with marijuana, unbeknownst to him? We’ll discuss the outcome in that case, plus much more on substance rules for Federal employees, on March 3 during the 60-minute virtual session High Times and Misdemeanors: Weed and the Workplace.

This month, we discuss the importance of accurate investigations, how to avoid discrimination in hiring, lack of candor, writing brevity, summary judgment, and IRAs.

Take care,

 

Deborah J. Hopkins, FELTG President

The Good News: Brief is Better

By Ann Boehm, February 15, 2022 Communication in 2022 is dominated by Twitter, which limits users to 280 characters per Tweet. Online news organizations provide news feeds specifying number of words and expected reading time. Brevity is so important that online news...

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Save Time with Summary Judgment

By Michael Rhoads, February 15, 2022 Let’s say your agency receives an EEO complaint and follows the EEO complaint process.  You’ve investigated the allegations and issued the complainant the report of investigation. The complainant requests an EEOC hearing. At this...

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Demystifying the Individual Right of Action

By Deborah Hopkins, February 15, 2022 A lot of FELTG training involves how agencies should handle disciplinary actions known as Otherwise Appealable Actions, or OAAs. OAAs are suspensions of 15 days or more, demotions, and removals. OAAs get their name because they...

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