Washington DC Regional Office
Federal Labor Relations Authority
800 K Street, NW, Suite 910
Dear Sir:
This letter is to substantiate and clarify the allegations contained in our charge against the Passport Agency filed this date with your office.
The following information supports our claim that an Unfair Labor Practice has been committed by the Agency:
· December 13, 2000: I sent nine SF1187’s to the Department of State, Bureau of Consular Affairs, Human Resources Division (CA/EX/HRD) for the following employees:
1. EMPLOYEE A Boston Office
2. EMPLOYEE B Boston Office
3. EMPLOYEE C Boston Office
4. EMPLOYEE D Boston Office
5. EMPLOYEE E New Orleans Office
6. EMPLOYEE F New Orleans Office
7. EMPLOYEE G New Orleans Office
8. EMPLOYEE H Seattle Office
9. EMPLOYEE I Seattle Office
They were received by CA/EX/HRD on December 18th, and delivered to the Payroll Office on December 21st. These facts are not in dispute.
· January 2, 2001: I sent three SF1187’s to the Department of State, Bureau of Consular Affairs, Human Resources Division (CA/EX/HRD) for the following employees:
10. EMPLOYEE J New Orleans Office
11. EMPLOYEE K Charleston Office
12. EMPLOYEE L Charleston Office
They were received by CA/EX/HRD on January 3rd, and delivered to Payroll on January 10th. These facts are not in dispute.
· March 9, 2001: I emailed CA/EX/HRD (copy attached) to request that they obtain a copy of the current list of dues paying members, since I had been informed that some of the above twelve employees’ dues were not yet being deducted. (I have requested and received this report before, but have been unsuccessful in getting Management to agree to send it to me regularly.)
· March 23, 2001: I received a faxed copy of the March 22, 2001 list of dues paying members from CA/EX/HRD (which had obtained it from Payroll). The list did not show dues deductions for any of the twelve employees listed above.
· March 28, 2001: I emailed a notice to CA/EX/HRD (copy attached) that there was a problem with the twelve SF1187’s. After discussing the issue during a telephone call and faxing copies of the SF1187’s, the dues deductions began being taken out on April 5, 2001.
Background to current charge:
On June 8, 1999, I filed an Unfair Labor Practice charge against the Department of State, Passport Agency over failure to deduct union dues for ten employees, some going back as far as nine months (Case WA-CA-90534, copy attached). The issue in that dispute was whether or not the SF1187 Dues Deductions forms were received by the Department. I provided evidence that convinced Management that the forms were received, as well as documenting my repeated attempts to resolve the issue.
That charge was withdrawn after Management agreed to reimburse the Union for the amount owed ($843.42), without deducting it from the ten employees’ salaries, and made a commitment that these delays would not happen again.
Attempts at resolving the current dispute prior to filing this charge:
In this current charge, it is now undisputed that the Department of State did in fact receive the SF1187 Dues Deduction forms, but failed to timely effect the deductions.
After consideration and discussion with my Union President, Bill Beardall, and NFFE National, we decided to pursue an Unfair Labor Practice charge against the Agency over this issue. We decided that in the spirit of cooperation, we would first try to resolve our complaint informally before filing this charge.
On April 30, 2001, I emailed Mr. MANAGEMENT, then Chief Labor-Management Negotiator for the Department of State about my concerns (see attached emails). I expressed to Mr. MANAGEMENT my disappointment that we were having yet another dues delay problem, since I had received a commitment that it wouldn’t happen again, and requested as a remedy that the Agency reimburse NFFE Local 1998 $535.68 that should have been sent to the Union.
Mr. MANAGEMENT, who retired on June 1st, made numerous inquires on this issue to confirm that the forms were received and the delay did in fact occur. On May 16th, he made a recommendation to Payroll (FMP) that the Agency reimburse the Union for the dues. Again on May 21st, he made a recommendation to another Management official in Payroll that the Union be reimbursed. On May 24th, he emailed Union President Bill Beardall to inform him that Payroll had decided not to reimburse the Union the dues, but would instead deduct them from the employees’ salaries – even though it was Payroll’s error, and the Union had been reimbursed previously for the same oversight.
The Agency has not lived up to its commitment that it made when I withdrew the previous ULP charge on August 24, 1999. For the second time in two years, the Agency has violated 5 USC 7115(a) & 7116(a)(1)(8) as well as the negotiated Agreement Between Passport Services and NFFE Local 1998 (copy of Article 10 attached).
To date, there has been no further communication between the Local and the Agency over this issue.
I appreciate your consideration of the matter and hope that we can achieve a timely resolution of the issues.
Sincerely,