The Society hosted the 46th Annual Symposium on Labor & Employee Relations on April 11-12, 2019, at the Hilton Crystal City Hotel in Arlington, VA. More than 160 participants at the conference were welcomed by SFLERP President Ed Cahoon, formerly with IFPTE Local 1 in the Virginia Hampton Roads area. FMCS Director Nominee, Honorable Richard Giacolone, served as the Keynote Speaker at the Friday luncheon. Longtime SFLERP member and Arbitrator Charles Feigenbaum was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award. NTEU Chapter 335 and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau were presented with the Margery Gootnick Labor-Management Cooperation Award.
The workshops at the Symposium covered a panoply of topics. Carl Bosland gave an update on FMLA while Joe Kaplan spoke about managing employees with mental and psychiatric disabilities. Mike Stein reprised his workshop on workstyle and generational diversity and SFLERP once again welcomed the EEOC, FLRA, FSIP, and the MSPB in their now traditional workshops covering the latest developments at their agencies. FSIP Chairman Honorable Mark Carter headed the workshop covering the work of the Panel. FMCS Commissioner Javier Ramirez gave an interesting talk about how the agency is using an innovative “Affinity Bargaining” model to move parties to a problem-solving approach to collective bargaining. Barbara Haga was back this year and provided two very well attended workshops, “Unacceptable Performance 2019” and “Sick Leave Hot Spots.” Several SFLERP Board members also presented workshops this year. Domenic Murgo gave a workshop on the grievance process and Arbitrator Gail Smith brought together a panel of well-known arbitrators Sarah Miller Espinosa, Lana Flame and Barry Shapiro, to discuss case presentation and evidence. Arbitrator Sean Rogers, aided by Michele Gonsalves, put on the Federal Sector version of Labor and Employee Relations Jeopardy! It kept everyone entertained.
Other well-received workshops included “An Appraisal of the Trump Labor Relations Program” from the Union perspective with Jeff Friday, NFFE, Michael McAuley, NTEU, and Ibidun Roberts from AFGE. Matthew Biggs, National Secretary-Treasurer of IFPTE, provided a legislative update on what’s happening on Capitol Hill. And Wayne University Professor Marick Masters was joined by NFFE Randy Erwin and AFGE Andres Grajales in studying the various perspectives on recent Presidential Executive Orders.
The closing plenary welcomed again Mr. Masters, Eugene Freedman from NATCA and Peyton Diotalevi from NTEU to discuss the fallout of government shutdowns. The evaluations came back with very high marks for SFLERP and for the conference planners. Thanks to all the speakers and participants!