January 2017 Federal Employment Law Training Group Newsletter
Driving in the Dark
I am not proud of what I am about to tell you, and please don’t tell my grandkids that I did it, but when I was a teenager, sometimes at night I would drive down country roads with my headlights turned off. I grew up in a small rural town with nothing much to do for excitement but drive Dad’s car. Our road trips were sort of a cross between American Graffiti and Carpool Karaoke. The thrill of driving down a two-lane road at night, and then switching off the headlights, was about as much of an adrenaline rush as we could imagine back in the day. Of course, we did it for only short periods of time – maybe 30 seconds at the most – and always on a full moon night. Heck, it’d be really dangerous to do it without moonlight (pause for the ironic nature of this last statement). As we move into the first months of a new administration, many of you readers see a dark road ahead, much as did Sarah Connor in the second Terminator. What’s going to happen? Where will the danger be? How will we get through this? Here at FELTG, we hope that you will see us as the moonlight in your dark travels. We don’t know any more than you do what 2017 in the federal civil service will bring. But whatever it is, we’re here to shine light on your path, and to offer some degree of rationality in what some might characterize as a dangerous thing to do.
If it’s Good Enough for College Football Players…
By William Wiley, January 18, 2017 If you watched many of the hundreds of college football bowl games recently, you might have noticed something I’ve not seen before. Apparently, there were at least a couple of senior superstars who chose not to play in their team’s...
EEOC Seeks Public Input on Revising Enforcement Guidance on Harassment Complaints
By Deryn Sumner, January 18, 2017 Following up on the report issued in 2016 by the EEOC’s Select Task Force on the Study of Harassment in the Workplace, on January 10, 2017, the EEOC announced that it was seeking feedback on a proposed Enforcement Guidance on Unlawful...
Another Reason to Do Away with Letters of Counseling
By Deborah Hopkins, January 18, 2017 Within the first few minutes of our FELTG onsite class UnCivil Servant: Holding Employees Accountable for Performance and Conduct, Bill and I ask a question of the attendees: Which of the following are “disciplinary” actions?...
The Good News About the MSPB Chairman Quitting
By William Wiley, January 18, 2017 Having worked inside of MSPB for nearly a decade, I know how this stuff works. As a Member’s departure gets closer, tough issues with significant impact that have been hanging around undecided get decided. It’s now or never when an...
EEOC Issues its List of Notable Cases for Fiscal Year 2016
By Deryn Sumner, January 18, 2017 A few weeks ago, someone stopped by my office and asked me to list what I considered the most important cases issued by the EEOC’s Office of Federal Operations in 2016. And I’m pretty sure I looked up from the pile of work I was...
Civil Service Reform and Performance Recognition
By Barbara Haga, January 18, 2017 I am following up with another article regarding another recommendation included in the report Governing for Results: A Transition and Management Agenda to Lead Policy Change in a New Administration, issued on October 17. The report...
Deck Chairs on the Titanic
By William Wiley, January 18, 2017 Here we go again. Congress is convinced that it is impossible to fire bad federal employees. In response to that belief, we’ve seen a bevy of bills, proposals, and actual legislation attempting to remedy this situation. Here are a...
Practice Tip: Say What You Mean in Drafting Terms of Settlement Agreements
By Deryn Sumner, January 18, 2017 In issuing one of its last decisions of 2016, the EEOC’s Office of Federal Operations left us with a nice reminder of the importance of being as specific as possible when drafting terms of settlement agreements. Although everyone in...