About 20 Food and Nutrition Service employees in the Department of Agriculture who took early retirements facing a tight budget could get the option to return to work and receive the difference between their pensions and what they would have made had they stayed on the job, the National Treasury Employees Union has announced.
It said an arbitrator’s ruling that FNS violated a labor contract by unilaterally implementing a voluntary early retirement program makes bargaining unit employees it represents eligible for reinstatement and back pay — minus pension receipts.
FNS negotiated with NTEU about implementing VERA to reduce staff by 73 positions, NTEU said, but added that negotiations were cut short and did not address proposals covering part-time work, leave without pay, job sharing, employee performance awards, and added work assignments.
According to NTEU, FNS said use of early retirements precluded it from having to bargain over those issues, but an arbitrator found that because union employees took the early retirements "without benefiting from . . . meaningful bargaining"that their decision "was not based on a fully-informed choice.”
