The scandal involving the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hospital scheduling delays is problematic in many ways. It apparently may have delayed treatment of veterans by keeping some portions of those waiting "off the books," apparently so that the performance of...
Month: December 2014
If you can’t remember, is it lack of candor?
Office of Special Counsel (OSC) obtained an order in a case involving potential retaliation by the Department of Homeland Security against one of their employees. The order from one of members of the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) will provide 45 days for the...
Punishing the retaliators
This is a thorny problem for any bureaucracy, but it certainly is a significant problem for the federal government. When a federal worker engages in whistleblowing, he or she is typically going outside the hierarchy of their department or divisions to bring notice to...
Judgment is needed to protect true merit
That managers are important in the operation of an entity is a commonplace. The proverbial statement that "A fish rots from the head down," apparently attributed to the Turks, is no doubt ancient in origin.Nonetheless, the Ottoman Empire was known for having a complex...
EEOC reinstates DHS employee due to sex discrimination
In some employment cases involving discrimination, it is often difficult to discriminate between genuine reasons for an action and pretext. In the context of federal employment, managers or supervisors with the agency may unfairly discriminate against an employee,...