RACIAL DISCRIMINATION BEHIND BASELESS REMOVAL PENALTY?
NAAE represents a Black technician in her quest to quash her supervisor’s proposal to terminate her employment with PPQ based upon cooked-up evidence of GOV misuse and submission of inaccurate records. This proposed discipline comes from her White male supervisor who spent days spying on her and, without her knowledge or consent, surreptitiously photographed her GOV parked in front of her home and searched that vehicle. It comes despite her 19 years of disciplinefree service for the Agency and significant time spent as a volunteer promoting diversity within the Agency and implementing work-related team-building activities. It comes despite no prior notice or warning from her supervisor or other managers.
NAAE assisted this PPQ technician prepare her written response to the charges on which the proposal to remove is based. In explaining the presence of her GOV at her home seven months earlier, she states that while she is unable to remember what happened on those exact days, she admits that on occasions she has stopped by her house in her GOV to pick up forgotten but vital medications and other occasions to pick up her lunch. In response to her supervisor’s claim that certain of her daily mileage reports were inaccurate and thus showed she had not worked full days on the dates in question, she points out that at her duty station daily mileage reports are not intended to show or account for daily activities and that she had turned in daily activities reports corroborating she had worked those dates. The Agency, in response to NAAE’s demand for documents, has yet to produce any evidence showing that her supervisor had previously instructed her or others to keep accurate daily mileage counts or that the Agency has directives or policies in place mandating employees turn in accurate GOV mileage records.
In her written response to these fabricated charges, she contends her supervisor’s proposal to remove her is just part of his racially motivated campaign to get rid of her. To date, the Agency has failed to act upon the charges, the proposed discipline, her defenses, or, more importantly, her allegations of racial bias. The Agency has placed her on administrative leave pending the outcome of the proposal to remove. Her special purgatory, essentially “working” under house arrest, began August 17, 2020 and continues to this day without resolution after more than four months.