Opinion ID: 580690
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: facts

Text: 2 In December 1987 Helen Owens, a pay clerk at the Army Finance and Accounting Center, was accused by her supervisor of using abusive and offensive language in a brief workplace encounter between them. As a result, the Army notified Owens that it proposed to suspend her without pay for 10 days. In response, Local 1411--of which Owens was acting vice president--filed an ULP charge with the Authority, alleging in relevant part that the Army had violated 5 U.S.C. §§ 7116(a)(1), (2), and (4) by proposing to suspend Owens for conduct related to official union activities. In due course Owens was in fact suspended for 10 days. While on suspension, she filed her grievance, in which she denied the alleged verbal offense and maintained that her suspension was without just cause. 3 In April the Regional Director of the FLRA declined to issue a complaint based upon the ULP charge filed by the Union. He reasoned that because the issues involved in the ULP charge had been raised in a prior grievance--an apparently erroneous premise--5 U.S.C. § 7116(d) barred their being raised anew as an ULP. Section 7116(d) states in relevant part that issues which can be raised under a grievance procedure may, in the discretion of the aggrieved party, be raised under the grievance procedure or as an unfair labor practice ... but not under both procedures (emphasis added). The Union appealed that decision to the General Counsel of the FLRA without success. 4 In a parallel proceeding, Owens exhausted the contractual grievance procedure and submitted her grievance to arbitration. Rejecting the Army's argument that Owens' grievance was barred by § 7116(d), the arbitrator revoked her suspension for want of just cause and awarded her back pay and reasonable attorney's fees. 5 The Army filed exceptions to the arbitrator's decision and the Authority overturned the arbitration award. The Authority ruled that because an ULP charge was filed on the same issue in the discretion of the same aggrieved party, the later-filed grievance [was] barred. U.S. Dep't of the Army, Army Finance and Acc'ting Center, Indianapolis, Indiana and Am. Fed'n of Gov't Employees, Local 1411 (Owens), 38 FLRA 1345, 1355 (1991). The Union and Owens petition for review of that decision.