Lastrapes, Spangler & Pacheco, P.A., lawyers in Rio Rancho, NM, New Mexico

Employer Monitoring of Employee's Electronic Communications

Several decades ago, the question of whether employers could monitor employees' communications was relatively simple. It was fairly well established that while employers could monitor business calls, they could not, with a few limited exceptions, eavesdrop on employees' personal phone calls. Today, employee communication has become high tech..More...

Filing an Unfair Labor Practices Charge with the Federal Labor Relations Authority

the Federal Labor Relations Authority)More...

The U.S. Office of Special Counsel

The United States Office of Special Counsel (OSC) is an independent, investigative federal agency that was created by Congress in 1978. At the time of its creation, the OSC worked directly with the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), reporting its findings of federal employment law violations to the MSPB, which would adjudicate them. In 1989, however, Congress separated the OSC from the MSPB and expanded the regulatory powers of the OSC, which is now wholly independent from the MSPB. This articles summarizes the organization and the primary functions of the OSC.More...

Privacy - Personnel Files - Disclosure

A job applicant that may consider lying in order to protect herself against an embarrassing or detrimental disclosure should keep in mind that the disclosure may come about anyway during the employer's background check or an investigation by a credit-reporting agency. In fact, the purposeful submission of misinformation on an application is viewed by many employers as an adequate reason for refusing to hire an applicant or for firing an employee.More...

Appealing a General Schedule Classification

The General Schedule (GS) Classification System is the scheme under which "white collar" federal competitive civil service jobs are classified for pay purposes. Employees placed into the same "class" of employment are also entitled to be treated similarly with regard to promotion, hiring, and other personnel decisions. More...