Yeah.

Welcome to the Aaron Harbor show.

My special guests.

The founder and principal of Pines federal attorney, Eric Pines.

Eric thanks so much for joining me.

My pleasure.

Aaron.

So, I mean, obviously your specialty is in the field of protecting and helping employees, especially of the federal government.

Tell me a little bit about Pines Federal.

Of course, that's actually all we do.

We represent federal employee and we represent them throughout the entire federal government.

But we tend to see a lot more V.A.

cases, Veterans Administration cases, and have a little bit of a specialty in representing VA doctors and nurses.

It's just called title 38 cases and also reasonable accommodation and disability type cases.

All right.

And reasonable accommodation i when somebody has a disability and the employer is requesting some type of accommodation so they can do their job.

Tell me a little bit more about what reasonable accommodations ar and and why are they reasonable.

Oh sure.

Okay.

Great question.

So reasonable accommodation i protected basically by the Ada.

But for federal employees, Americans for disability, veterans with disability access, but for federal employees, they call i the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

But what the law basically says is that if an employee is disabled and it's not too hard to prove you're disabled these days, but once you prove you're disabled, the agency that you work for must accommodate you and give you an effective accommodation, unless it is an undue hardship on the agency.

Those are all terms of art, which, we could, delve into if we wanted to.

Federal employees generally don't attract a lot of attention.

But obviously with the Trump administration, there's been a huge focus on what has happened to many federal employees.

So talk a little bit about, at least from you perspective in your knowledge, what what kind of authority does a president have to do things like have all probationar or many probationary employees fired and the type of, of acts changes executive orders that the country has seen sinc the administration took office.

Well, it's a very interesting question because basically, the president has the executive powers to do what he wants to do.

And then Congress, of course, legislates certain things.

And the Civil Service Reform Act of the 1970s was, an act that gave federal employees the rights that they have now and that they that basically we work under our firm works and we represent people for the MSB, which is a title five employees, we represent them for EEO cases and things like that.

EEO as an equal employment opportunity.

There are special federal administrative courts just for federal employees.

So we represent them there and they have these rights, and these are rights that are statutorily, given to them.

However, even within those statutory rights, people who are probationary can be fired for pretty much any reason that's not discriminatory or retaliatory.

One of the things that fascinates me fro a management perspective is that certainly it's it's easie to fire probationary employees than other employees because of the fact that they're on probation.

And one can say your probation is over from our perspective, and you're done.

But, what strikes me is I sai from a management perspective, these are probably younger employees for the most part.

Probably highly skilled when it comes to technology.

Probably represented in many cases, the future of the the offices or the agencies they work.

And while I'm not saying from a discriminatory perspective that we need, we should be getting rid of the older workers.

It seems like to simpl wholesale get rid of probation and probationary employees is not looking at which of these employee are highly skilled and which are not highly skilled.

So it seems like we're getting rid of potentially some really great talent for the federal government.

That's definitely the case.

And of course, you know, when you hire employees, you're going to get good, you're going to get bad.

But if you basically take a swipe and get rid of all of the employees and the reason of course they're doing that is because they can, it's much easier to do it.

But when you do that of course you're going to lose some of the most talented people out there, whereas you're going to lose some people that didn't weren' necessarily the most talented.

But that is definitely a danger.

It sounds like if you're in a probationary employee, is there really very little you can do to contest being fired?

There really is very little you can do.

What you can do is basically, if you've been discriminated against for reasons that are protected under EEO, as we discussed before, laws you can find EEO case.

But take it from me.

I don't recommend it.

It might make sense to file it, but I don't recommend hiring an attorney because it's extremely hard.

It's not your typical case because the courts will look at the administrative court will look at it like, look, they could have fired him for any reason.

So all the agency needs to do is come up with any reason.

So it's a lot harde for them to defend themselves.

Of course, there's whistleblower laws as well under the Whistleblower Protection Employment Act.

But once again, the agency could just say, well, they did X wrong.

And it's your word versus their word.

All right.

And some non probationary federal employees have filed protests against their firing.

Have filed cases.

In some of those cases.

Judges have ruled that they don't have any standing.

What is that about?

Well, just to clarify it, I know with probationary employees that there's been some cases filed on their behalf.

Actually, and there was a state put in place like the OSC, which is the Office of Special Counsel, which does, whistleblower protection and other prohibited personnel practices.

And it's not a special counsel in the sense of what I think the public normall has seen over the past decade.

That is exactly right.

They do not have the power of special counsel.

And, they're basically a watchdog agency without the most power that you would hope that they would have, that they deserve to have.

And that's a discussion we might have later as well.

But the reality is they don't have it.

And basically they look into it and then they'll come back and they have the ability.

They're the only agency that we've worked with at go before that actually has th ability to put a stay in place to stop a removal.

That's why it makes sense to go to them.

And so I know they state a few removals, but even those have been, released to go.

So unfortunately, those case haven't gone very far as well.

What, what's your take on firings that have occurred that you think are blatantly illegal, blatantly illegal, or blatantly wrong?

Give me both.

Start with wrong.

Okay, wrong.

So I think you put your finge on it perfectly in the beginning when you blanket fire people and you do it because you're just trying to clear out the government, then you're going to end up basically not intelligently deciding who should be kept and who shouldn't be kept.

So of course you're going to it's logical.

You're going to choose the people who don't have the rights to protect them, becaus that will decrease the appeals.

But I'm just going to reiterate what you were saying before that when you do that, you're going to end up losing some of the best and you're going to end up losing the future.

I thin that's the best way to say it.

So that that would be something that's wrong, illegal.

I think it's sort of a case by case basis.

We would have to, you know, approach that case.

But in general, if you're violating the Civil Service Act, you're violating the law.

So what should, you know, people who are concerned about what's the kind of the evisceration of the federal government, what what should they be most concerned about?

What should they be communicating to the American people about what is happening?

In are there constitutional issues involved, in your opinion?

So I think a good answer to that is that basically a person needs to, first of all, in life, look at things from both perspective.

Try to put yourself in the shoes of the other side, and then put yourself in your own shoes so I can understand we're trying to balance the budget.

I can understand that there's been a lot of waste in the government.

I see it all the time from inside.

But at the same time, you have to look at the fact that, the government is basically, what is the backbone of this country.

And, you know, I think we're learning with some of these firings that when we go too far, whether it's the FAA or whether it's something that's essential and necessary to keep this country running, just blanket swaths of removals is not an intelligent way better to slow it down and to sit down and put together commissions that can determine who is an essential employee, who's not essential employee, who is a qualified employee, who's not a qualified to play and do it intelligently.

I know that's not as quick as one as they would want it to be done, but I think it would serve us all.

It would serve them.

It would serve the entire country much, much better.

Well, yeah, certainly when you're firing, experts that are involved with nuclear safety, that doesn't seem to be terribly prudent, or you're firing people in the Federal Aviation Administration again, you know that that raises an issue, safety issues.

I don't think the public wants that.

But I think what it goes to, I think a core issues, my sense is that, our leadership are both Republican and Democrat in terms of presidents on down cabinet members historically, I woul argue, has done a terrible job of educating the American people about what these what these agencies actually do of value.

And so because of that vacuum of information, it's easy for those who want to dismantle the government to just, you know, it's kind of like, you know, I'm from the government, I'm here to help you.

And everybody laughs.

And the concept is, no, you're you're not here to help you.

And, I'm fascinated by the number of people who will say, you know, the government can't do anything.

Well, can't do anything right is always wasteful.

How do we counter that?

And why hasn't leadership informed Americans about the many good things that governments do at different level?

I think it's because it's too politicized.

I personally think that, you know, when the Democrats are in office, they're focused o growing the federal government.

They're focused on, certain things.

People would say entitlements and things like that.

And when and we live in a society now, in a world because of the media, because of social media, where then when the other side comes in office they go to the opposite extreme to prove their point and to be to be seen, to be seen on social media, whatever it is.

So the reality of the situation is when when you take things and you go to two extremes, then basically you grow too big, you grow, you're bloated, you're spending too much money, and then boom, you come in as another administration and you remove everybody.

And so as like most most things in life, the answe lies in an intelligent middle, something that's thought out that takes into account that we are tax.

But look, I represent fellow employees, but I'm a taxpayer and all the time I find myself saying I don't want to pay for somebod to take advantage of the system.

And I feel like that's a very honest thing coming from someone like me.

But it's true.

It's the reality.

But at the same time, I also see some of the most excellent employees in the world.

The federal government is is blessed to have them.

And you know, I always laugh like that.

The, you know, Congress, they're federal employees.

The president is a federal employee.

You know, we have in this world, we have some very talented people.

And what needs I'm now giving my opinion, but what needs to happen is basically maybe a commission of both sides coming together to sit down and to intelligently find a balance.

So actually, in the past there, there have been, efforts, commissions to study how to make the federal government more efficient under the, Clinton administration.

Al Gore led that effort very carefully done, thoughtful.

And they identified a number of areas where improvements could b made, where cuts could be made.

And then they went and implemented, billions and billions of dollars in reductions.

And it's interesting because the the public, I think at large, isn't really aware of that effort, even though, it was exactly, to me, the logical way you do things as opposed to cutting and the figuring out what you're doing, it makes more sense.

Figure out.

Okay, what what makes the most sense to cut?

Where can we reduce?

What's the most efficacious way to do that?

And then let's do that.

So it's kind of like, you know, this administration for a specific reason instead of ready, aim, fire.

It's been more like ready, fire, aim, which in the long run could b very damaging, to the country.

And over the years, we'll see, how that plays out and whether the damage that has occurred, is repairabl in a matter of months or years, or is it going to be a decade or more?

But of course, the motivation is we want to see the reduction in the federal government.

Now we want to see reduction in, the cost of the federal government.

Now we want to get rid of this much waste as we can.

And so I think there's some perspective and certainly on the part on, on Elon Musk and the president I think the perspective has been we need to take these wholesale actions to have a financial impact.

And if the corollary damage is or the collateral damage is that, you know we lose some, some good people if the collateral damages, we impair some government functions to to some people, that's okay.

That's acceptable.

I think that's the wrong strategy.

But I think if you look at most Americans and this goes to my point, who don't really understand the workings of the federal government or the or most government, at most levels, that type of the perspective I just articulated resonates with them because there's this overall impressio that all government is wasteful.

I don't personally, I as an insider who I represent labor unions, I work with agency officials.

I have friends on both sides of they.

I personally don't think that's the case.

There certainly is more waste, in my opinion, in government than there is in the private sector.

Just by the nature of the fact that there's no competition necessarily.

And that's that's just the reality.

And people must accept that.

That's the reality.

But we need the government.

So there has to be a balance.

There has to be a way for people to sit down where that exactly.

Like you said, if you take these swaths of people and you go to such and then all of a sudden, you know, there's a lot of plane crashes because the FAA I'm just using an example, random example.

Well, then are these changes really going to matter when the people are voted out of office?

The new people come in an they just start hiring people.

I don't think that's what th intent of the administration is.

It's not the best thing for them is what I'm saying.

The best thing for them is to sit down.

Like you said, they did in previous administrations, and figure ou what could be a lasting change, because we do need, clearly the government needs to balance the budget or at least move in that direction.

But the intelligent way to do it is in a way that last that doesn't just follow administration lashing back and forth, but it is a very daunting task to do.

And there are human beings lives involved.

And that's what I see.

I get the calls regularly from people.

I lost my job and many of them.

There's nothing I can do for them.

So one of the things I really want to discuss, and this is just this is part one of a two part series, is some of your on the ground experience.

And you do a lot of work, for employee in the veterans, administration.

And I'd be, you know, I' particularly interested in that, the Veterans Administration like the Department of Defense, I think has a reputation.

I've had senators on, the show Congress people, and there's this uniform agreement that the Veterans Administration, it is very inefficient, is very wasteful, i and is very difficult to change.

What's your take?

Your overall take on the veterans in this basically, I'm going to try to give it, again, a balanced approach there.

I see on the negative side to start, I see a lot of corruption.

Unfortunately.

In what way?

I see that basically people in positions of authority who should not be there.

I don't financial corruption.

No, I'm talking more corrupt.

I'm talking more about mistreating employees.

I mean, ther clearly is financial corruption, but those aren't the type of cases I'm dealing with.

So but I see them.

But, I, I'm dealing more with mistreatment of people.

I'm dealing more with hire that should not have been hired.

Discrimination, mistreatment, basically situations where people's lives are destroyed, because somebody has too much power and nobody's checking their power.

So I feel that definitely a lo of changes need to take place.

I think it's the largest federal agency, not 100% sure, but I'm pretty sure.

So it's clearly a very, very large and clearly there's a lot of veterans that wor in the Veterans Administration.

And of course, we need we need that the veterans we need to give back to our veterans.

And that's wha this whole discussion is about, is being good to our veterans.

These people are devoted and giving their lives to us, and we want to make it as pro veteran as humanly possible.

The reality situation, that was it.

The employees who are in place are not the appropriate employees and management.

Then unfortunately, you're going to have an organization that's not going to serve th veterans as well as it should.

So, for example in the Veterans Administration and in a lot of federal hiring, if you're a veteran, you get a preference, you get a hiring preference.

Well, I don't think that should change.

I think veterans should be hired.

But I think training is essential and I think real training and I also think that's that, that not every veteran is qualified to do every job, but I think that veterans should get preference.

But there should be a real preference, not a preference, that they automatically get hired because they're a veteran, but a preference that they're put in front of another candidate who they are equal with.

As far as qualified cautions, because they're a veteran, that's somethin I think we can all get behind.

But the reality situation is there's a lot of nepotism, there's a lot of shufflin that goes on in the government.

When somebody does something wrong, they're not removed.

They're just put in a different position.

And you've got people moving up the ranks who don't have the qualifications, and you end up in a situation where basically corruption, is everywhere.

And so to answer your question, I don't think we should stop hiring veterans.

This is the agenc that should have hired veterans.

But you either have to make sure you hire the qualified veteran.

And we all know there's I mean, I can't tell you how many people I work with or veterans who have small businesses, who are brilliant people who, clearly, you know, in many ways have the type of training that people in the private sector don't have and, and are heads above the people that they might necessarily compete with.

So those are the people that we should be seeking out to put in certain positions.

And that's not the reality is that's not necessarily happening.

A lot of times internal hires move up without being scrutinized because of nepotism, friendships or veterans preference.

So, you know, given that that's, endemic to the organization, how do you change that?

Because, as I mentioned, whe I talk to people in, the house and in the, in the Senate they're all aware of this, yet I don't see them effectively getting any changes made.

Am I wrong about that?

I mean, I haven't seen any changes.

I've been doing this job for 25 years.

So what will it take?

I think it would take a the things we were talking about before commissions, people sitting down, brainstorming, using intellect, using management ideas.

I mean, Elon Musk knows how to run things.

Maybe Elon Musk can sit down and, use some of his leadership ideas and thoughts and brainstorm an ide that could actually fix things instead of just remove people, other ideas where people basically sit down and there's, you know, like partnership with under Bill Clinton, there was this ide of partnership with management and unions sitting down and working together because, I mean, we know in this worl when people are working together that, things go much more smoothly.

And and like I said, they don't snap back and forth based on the administration.

So I think that needs to happen.

I think there needs to be a commission that sits down, that intelligently, thinks of ways to fix things, and not just put Band-Aids on thing.

I think what you're saying is they've been putting Band-Aids on things for years, and I completely agree that's not the answer.

And firing people is not the answer.

And hiring people willy nilly who are qualified is not the answer.

Intelligently.

Sitting down with a group of people from the inside who understand what's going o and getting advice intelligent.

But that's the way to do it.

So how do we improve, for example?

I mean, you talked about nepotism and corruption.

What kind of process could be used to increase accountability now?

And I'll give you example, at the, it's the Eastern Colorad Veterans Health Administration, you know, based in Denver.

It was there was a, there have been a whole series of front page articles in the Denver Post about corruption and bad decision making.

I mean, not just bad.

I mean really bad decision making.

In one example, you had, a situation where veterans would come in for, to get a prosthetic and they would have an appointment with a docto at the Veterans Administration.

They might need a leg or an arm or whatever.

And, I mean, these are incredibly serious, you know, life changing, necessities.

And, doctor would take a measurement, you know, would see the patient would place in order for a prosthetic, and then the veteran would wait, and sometimes weeks would pass, sometimes months would pass.

I mean, you're waiting for something to be, produced, created uniquely for you.

So it's not something that is done overnight, though, these days with 3D printing, who knows?

But anyway, that's another show.

And often they would call th doctor and say, hey, you know, it's been three months, you know, where, where's where's my leg or whatever the case may be.

And, the doctor would say, well, you know, I place the order and I guess it's slow or whatever.

It turns out that the agency that that particular, group in the agency, the the, the Eastern Colorado group, was so far behin in filling those kinds of orders that it was making them look bad.

And so instead of finding a way to get the orders filled, one of the top administrators went into the system and deleted orders for prosthetics.

And so their numbers suddenly looked better.

But these veterans were not getting their prosthetics.

And of course if a veteran called the doctor, unless the doctor looked at the record, mos doctors are super busy at the VA and they would just say, hey yeah, I already ordered it on.

You know, I don't know why it's taking so long.

Anyway, this was uncovered there should have been a whole slew of people fired.

I'm not aware that anyone was fired.

So, number one, how do we address those kinds of situations?

And why aren't people terminated?

I mean, if if you ar responsible for doing something that cruel and egregious, you should in my opinion, you should be fired and prosecuted.

So this is gone on in the VA for a while.

We've seen, waiting list issues.

We've seen things like that.

Look I represent federal employees.

My personal opinion is it's disgusting.

And these people should be fire and they should be prosecuted.

I'm sorry.

That's probably not going to go over well with the plaintiff's bar, but, the reality situation is, if you want to build credibility, you need to do the right thing in this world.

So there's an IG's office, right?

Inspector general, inspector general's office.

There needs to be a VA special, investigator who has the ability to protect people for telling the truth.

Because I represent whistleblowers.

And these people can b railroaded right out of the VA. We're going to talk about this in the future.

Another program.

Peopl whose lives have been destroyed when they come forward and they tell the like, that' not what we want to encourage.

And the answer to your question is, yes, those people need to be whistleblowers need to be give the freedom to blow the whistle when they see i and not be retaliated against.

Number one.

And number two, these people need to be held responsible for the good.

Actors in this world are they?

They are the ones who we should stick up for by punishing the bad actors.

All right.

Well, you already have.

So IG, you already hav the Office of Inspector General.

Is that office simply not doing its jo and or is it simply overwhelmed?

What's what's the problem there?

I would think they definitely are doing their job, but I think they are overwhelmed.

I think the resources need to be put there, and I think that's a great use of of government resources to let the investigators, especially as we try to clean up the problems with the VA to to put the resources there and to protect the people so that they can go to that and utilize those resources without feeling the pain.

And how effective is that office, though?

It can be effective, like at the end of the day, when it hits the media, when I'm sure I'm not sure, but I'm pretty confiden the one that hit the newspaper.

You're talking about those people.

When it gets in the media, things are done.

What needs to be done, though, is it shouldn't have to hit the media before it's cleaned up.

So it can be effective, but the resources are limited and it's going to focus on what's in the public eye.

I would think it's just human nature, but it needs to be more than that.

Well, in part two we're goin to discuss some specific cases of people who have been abused by the VA. And so, I'm looking forward to that.

But thank you, Eric.

Thank you.

It's a pleasure.

Yeah.

Joining me today.

All right.

That was Eric Pines, the principal founder of Pines Federal in Houston, Texas, protecting federal employees across the country.

I'm Erin Harbor.

Make sure you stay tuned for part two of this two part series.

Thanks for watching.

I'm Erin host of the Aaron Harber show.

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