Union Sues Nickles
The American Federation of Government Employees has filed a lawsuit in D.C. Superior Court seeking an injunction to block Acting D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles from firing eight city lawyers in his office. Lawyers for the union said the employees "received satisfactory of better performance ratings in the most recent rating period." Nickles' contention that the city lawyers performed poorly is a "pretext to disguise the true basis for the terminations, which is to address the budget," the lawsuit states.
The union paints some of the fired attorneys as facing difficult circumstances. One has been working for the city for 16 years and is "a single parent who has recently been diagnosed with chronic, serious medical problems. Her termination and the loss of her health insurance would have catastrophic consequences." Another is a father of four who is a member of the Marine Corps reserves "awaiting imminent military orders to leave for Iraq. ... If he is terminated as planned, his family will lose significant benefits while he is deployed."
By David A Nakamura |
June 16, 2008; 1:16 PM ET
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Posted by: Interested Observer | June 16, 2008 4:04 PM
Peter Nickles is as un-American as they come. I have never ever known an Attorney General to use symantics to overrun the U.S. Constitution laying waste of citizens civil liberties. Oppps. I spoke too soon, I forgot about Alberto Gonzalez, Nickles is in good company. However Alberto is much younger and is not a has-been old fart who is little respected at the firm from which he sprang.
Posted by: Concernedaboutdc | June 16, 2008 9:41 PM
A couple of things caught my eye when I read the article about the termination of the OLDER lawyers.
1. "bright young stars"
2. "poor performance of duties"
Because someone is young does not make them a better lawyer, just a young one. Most older people knows the ins and outs of anything.
Anyone's performance of duties can be affected by the why their Management dictates their duties. Changing it in mid stream, or just not informing the the employee what is required.
I am seeing it as terminating OLDER employees and hiring YOUNGER ones to replace them.
Posted by: El_52 | June 17, 2008 10:02 AM
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I don't know if "reducing the budget" is a legitimate reason for terminating employees in this situation, but I do know that there are other ways in which the AG's budget could be reduced, ways that avoid any potential running afoul of DC employment law. I have friends in that office, and I know that the office declined to participate in the Mayor's retirement incentive program this year, claiming lack of funds to pay the incentives. If, as has been widely described, the AG is saddled with a group of older, longer-term, higher-salaried employees, some or all of whom he wishes to be relieved of, a sure-fire way to reduce that burden would be to do just the opposite: offer the retirement incentives, and fairly generous ones at that. In return for a one-shot infusion of cash, each of those employees leaves the payroll forever. If I may, I would look to this newspaper as a shining example of how employee rolls - and salary budgets - can be drastically cut by the floating of an offer too good to reasonably refuse.