The case involved a union complaint against DHS setting promotional potential up to GS-13 for new hires, but only grade 12 for existing personnel in some jobs. Image: Mark Van Scyoc/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffIn a case notable for the length of time it spent in what often is a lengthy labor-management process, a federal appeals court has told a trial judge to dismiss a union grievance dating to 2002.
Case No. 22-5308 before the federal appeals court for the District of Columbia Circuit involved a complaint by the AFGE union against DHS setting promotional potential up to GS-13 for new hires in certain positions, while existing employees could reach only grade 12. In the following years, the case bounced between the arbitration and FLRA board levels, with disputes over issues of jurisdiction and technical matters such as the FLRA board’s policies for handling arbitration decisions.
In a final decision in 2018, the FLRA held that the matter was one of job classification that was outside the scope of the union’s right to challenge through a grievance; the AFGE then challenged that decision in federal district court. There, a judge ruled in favor of the union on yet another technical matter—involving whether the FLRA went beyond its discretion in vacating an award in favor of the union—which the FLRA in turn appealed to the circuit court.
Without commenting directly on the tortuous process—which involved ten separate summaries of the case by the arbitrator and eight different decisions by the FLRA board—the appeals court said the case falls within its general precedent holding that district courts cannot review FLRA arbitration decisions and that the dispute did not meet the standards for an exception to that principle. It sent the case back to the district court, ordering it to dismiss the complaint.
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