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Post by thankful1 on Jan 23, 2017 18:49:46 GMT -5
Apparently the union lost the telework arbitration. Must hold 50 hearings a month (rain or shine, vacation time be damned) to telework. That's 12.5 hearings week if you want to use two weeks vacation (remember we can not work on holidays); 13.3 per week if you want to take five weeks, and perhaps avoid losing your accrued vacation time.
At 12.5 hearing per week, if you have an average of 400 pages in a file, that's 5,000 pages a week.
There's 2,400 minutes in a week. That means if you did NOTHING else - meaning not holding hearings on those cases, not issuing instructions, not editing drafts, not reviewing on the record, dire need, critical etc., you would have 28.8 seconds to read, and presumably digest, each page in the file.
If 12.5 hearings takes you 10 hours, you now have 21.6 seconds to read (and comprehend and digest) the pages in the file.
If it takes you 15 minutes to issue instructions on each case, and 15 minutes to edit, you now have 17.1 seconds per page. Again, that doesn't include any other duties other than prepping, holding a hearing, issuing instructions, and editing and signing a decision. Nor does it take into account mandatory meetings or trainings.
Obviously as you play with these numbers (by doing things like going to the bathroom, or saying hello to a co-worker) it generally becomes even worse
The assertion that a case can be meaningfully adjudicated in this type of time frame strains credulity. To the extent that there may be responses to this post suggesting that such a workload is possible, lets just agree to disagree on the definition of "meaningfully."
So there will now be a tangible sanction for those who do not schedule 50 cases per month, 600 cases per year. Judge Posner indicated that the lack of a sanction for chicken deboners who did not debone 50 chickens per month was one of the reasons we had no standing to challenge agency pronouncements on quotas. At least we may force him to come up with another reason why we have no standing in the future.
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Post by christina on Jan 23, 2017 19:07:50 GMT -5
that is horrible. i know there are differences among judges as to how feasible 50 hearings a month is but have certainly talked to many good ones who don't consider it feasible.
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Post by ba on Jan 23, 2017 20:27:37 GMT -5
Maybe it's just me, but after reading the decision, I got the impression that the arbiter indicated that it isn't ripe since no one was complaining that telework was taken from them for failing to comply yet. But hey, don't let me stop a good chicken little rant.
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Post by gary on Jan 23, 2017 21:11:28 GMT -5
Can it be posted here?
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Post by captainobvious on Jan 24, 2017 8:33:46 GMT -5
Is that to obtain additional days of Telework or any and all Telework? Telework is too big a ship to turn entirely around. If everyone reported on the same day, SSA wouldn't have enough space to house them...
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Post by bartleby on Jan 24, 2017 8:53:24 GMT -5
From the AALJ newsletter:
PRESIDENT’S NEWSLETTER
Telework – Very Bad News
Today I received the arbitrator’s award in our Telework Grievance, which challenged the Agency’s determination that 50 scheduled hearings per month was required in order to be eligible to telework. In just two pages of analysis, the arbitrator decided that the agency had a management right to issue the Telework Memo, cherry-picking statements made by the fact-finder who fashioned the telework language to justify his decision, while ignoring the clear statements that supported our position.
The contract language at issue was imposed on us by the Federal Service Impasses Panel; it was nothing that we bargained or agreed to.
I invite you to review the transcript and briefs in this case, posted on our website, and draw your own conclusions.
This result, in the face of overwhelming evidence that 50 hearings per month (later reduced to 45, undoubtedly as a result of this arbitration), is neither reasonable nor justified, given the exponential increase in case file size, the decrease in resources and staff support, and the fact that fewer than half of our corps can issue 500 annual dispositions.
I fully expect the National Executive Board to vote to appeal this arbitration award. In the meantime, I suggest that you contact your HOCALJ, RCALJ and the Chief Judge to let them know of your displeasure that the agency has determined to maintain unconscionable requirements in order to telework. Absent an outcry, expect the screws to tighten on us. No judge should be scheduling more hearings than he or she can ethically and properly adjudicate. And telework should not be held over our heads in order to do that.
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Post by maquereau on Jan 24, 2017 9:34:21 GMT -5
Unfortunately, my decision instructions always seem to cost me far more than 15 minutes.  |
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Post by bartleby on Jan 24, 2017 10:44:11 GMT -5
How about your EDIT time?  |
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Post by owl on Jan 24, 2017 11:31:00 GMT -5
If the actual new minimum is 45 hearings per month (540 per year), then I come up with the following for minimum hearings per week (8 federal holidays per year = 1.6 weeks of holidays):
2 weeks vacation = 48.4 working weeks = 540 divided by 48.4 = 11.2 hearings per week
3 weeks = 11.4
4 weeks = 11.6
5 weeks = 11.9
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Post by owl on Jan 24, 2017 11:40:41 GMT -5
If the actual new minimum is 45 hearings per month (540 per year), then I come up with the following for minimum hearings per week (8 federal holidays per year = 1.6 weeks of holidays): 2 weeks vacation = 48.4 working weeks = 540 divided by 48.4 = 11.2 hearings per month 3 weeks = 11.4 4 weeks = 11.6 5 weeks = 11.9 OK, I screwed that up. There are 9 holidays, which equals 1.8 weeks of holidays, and 4 OCEP days on which hearings cannot be scheduled, which is an additional 0.8 weeks, for 2.6 weeks of nonvacation/nonhearing days. Let's see if I can get this posted before someone deservedly corrects me!
2 weeks vacation = 47.4 working weeks = 540 divided by 47.4 = 11.4 hearings per week 3 weeks = 11.6 4 weeks = 11.9 5 weeks = 12.2
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Post by Pixie on Jan 24, 2017 11:41:34 GMT -5
How about your EDIT time? well, if it is something i wrote, i'd say about 3 minutes   please do not corroborate this with any judges i write for! I don't think it is corroborateable. Not sure that is a word yet, but it should be. |
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Post by hopefalj on Jan 24, 2017 12:06:32 GMT -5
How about your EDIT time? That is my biggest time suck by far. If my EDIT time were only 20-30 minutes per decision, this job would be 200% easier. Unfortunately, when it takes me 8 hours to edit and sign 4-5 decisions, the job becomes extremely tedious. |
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Post by Pixie on Jan 24, 2017 15:38:02 GMT -5
Tom B informed me in a PM that the word is Corroborable. Probably not in wide usage, but he did find it in the Collins English Dictionary. Thanks, tom b Pixie
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Post by nylawyer on Jan 24, 2017 16:25:36 GMT -5
Is it that we must hold 45 hearings a month, or schedule them? If it's schedule, then while I'm still a newbie that doesnt strike me as unattainable.
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Post by sealaw90 on Jan 24, 2017 22:40:55 GMT -5
Is it that we must hold 45 hearings a month, or schedule them? If it's schedule, then while I'm still a newbie that doesnt strike me as unattainable. I'd agree with you on 45 hearings per month, but if Management pushed for 50, then in the long run that is not only untenable, but rife with sloppy analysis and weak reviews of decisions which leads to an increase in remands. How is that workable? There's got to be a sweet spot between moving many cases and delivering legally defensible decisions. I just don't like it to be a number certain, but a narrow range of cases per month (40 - 48?) that would allow each ALJ to achieve success. |
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Post by carrickfergus on Jan 24, 2017 23:37:04 GMT -5
Maybe it's just me, but after reading the decision, I got the impression that the arbiter indicated that it isn't ripe since no one was complaining that telework was taken from them for failing to comply yet. But hey, don't let me stop a good chicken little rant. That's what I took from it as well - but TPTB will run with it and try to take it into the end zone. |
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Post by maquereau on Jan 25, 2017 9:58:48 GMT -5
How about your EDIT time? There is nothing, and I mean nothing, that eats up my time like editing. The quality of writing varies greatly from office to office. In good offices, I can get my editing and other functions done in something like, oh, a 50-hour workweek. In a bad office .... it's tough to even talk about it. |
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Post by christina on Jan 25, 2017 11:14:53 GMT -5
How about your EDIT time? There is nothing, and I mean nothing, that eats up my time like editing. The quality of writing varies greatly from office to office. In good offices, I can get my editing and other functions done in something like, oh, a 50-hour workweek. In a bad office .... it's tough to even talk about it. I can imagine. |
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Post by montyburns on Jan 25, 2017 11:39:55 GMT -5
How about your EDIT time? There is nothing, and I mean nothing, that eats up my time like editing. The quality of writing varies greatly from office to office. In good offices, I can get my editing and other functions done in something like, oh, a 50-hour workweek. In a bad office .... it's tough to even talk about it. I hate to say it but I think ALJs are going to spend a lot more time in EDIT with implementation of DWPI and the "race to the bottom" in terms of quality that it surely entails. |
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Post by redryder on Jan 25, 2017 16:25:22 GMT -5
It looks like it is time for the individual judges to think about docket management and work with the rest of the office to optimize hearing room usage. There are two very simple but effective ways to schedule 50 cases per month. In one model, the judge schedules hearings by the week, not the day. Two weeks per month x 12 months is 24 weeks of hearings, leaving 28 weeks for desk time/vacations/time off. I follow the week on/week off plan. During the week of hearings, I have 6 scheduled M-Th and 3-4 on F. That 25+ per docket. Another judge does 5 hearings per day, M-F for 25 total. Another does M-Th with 7 hearing per day.
If the judges never have to travel, there is a model of hearing room sharing. Two judges are assigned a room and hold hearings for 1/2 day every day. If 3 per day are held, that's 15 per week and up to 60 per month. And every so often, the judges agree between themselves to flip who has mornings and who has afternoons. Even so, that accounts for 48 weeks of the year, leaving 4 weeks open. And in that 4th week, one need only schedule 5 more hearings or 2 days to get to 50.
If your area of the country is like ours, we are being slammed by continuing review cases. At one time, each of these was given a hearing slot, but after seeing how many of these folks came to the hearing and requested the postponement to get a representative, I asked that the schedulers batch these. I have had as many as 4 scheduled for the same time on the afternoon of one day. And all 4 asked for postponements. Everything was disposed of within 30 minutes and I could focus on other work. Plus the hearing reporter liked getting paid $20 for 30 minutes of work versus $20 while we would have twiddled our thumbs for 3+ hours waiting for these folks to come for separate hearing times.
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please do not corroborate this with any judges i write for! 
