My commentary is that it is clear that SSA's theory is to speed up the adjudication process.
If I were a low-producing ALJ (which I am not), I would be freaked out by this. The process could be operated in such a way to schedule hearings equitably across the board for all ALJs. The heavy hitters would get relief and the leakers would get pushed to put out some cases for a change. Leakers should be pushed out the door. This may be the shoe in the butt needed to get them on the way.
Would this dilute the APA powers of ALJs? Maybe so. Have a "significant number" of ALJs grossly abused those "APA powers" by sitting on their hands, not scheduling enough hearings, and then not issuing timely decisions. Of course that is true.
Perhaps the AALJ union will oppose the change. I hope not.
Joined: 13 May 2004 Posts: 740 Location: Federal Hill, Baltimore, MD
Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 09:17 pm Post subject:
In re: the ALJ Union and footnote 25, I would bet you a bundle that Ron Bernoski is typing away furiously at this very moment, fire and brimstone wafting about his head, lightning bolts shooting from his quill (Ron always preferred a quill, as I recall...or was that Dumbledore?). Anyhow, the union will oppose this proposal, of that there's no doubt whatsoever. Still, it's a very sensible change, one that can be justified on technical/systems grounds, over and above the APA (which doesn't apply, remember) issues.
This exactly the kind of remedy that the AALJ Union should not oppose. Why? I seem to remember from my labor law classes years ago and my work as a personnel projects manager that:
Quote:
Title 5, USC, Section 7106(a) is known as "Management Rights" which are to make basic
management decisions regarding mission, budget, organizations, security, emergencies; and to
take personnel actions to hire, direct, layoff, and retain employees, remove, reduce in grade or
pay, take disciplinary actions, assign work, contract out, and promote. These items generally are
nonnegotiable.
Rather than opposing the idea, the AALJ Union should push to ensure that the procedures of work assignment are equitable in a manner that forces the under-performers to finally get busy and to reward the high-performers by somewhat reducing their burdens. Equity in work assignments with consequences for failure to perform are essential to resolve the ALJ-related causes in the massive, ancient, and systemic backlog problem.
I would find it inconceivable that the Union would oppose the common sense notion that just because a particular ALJ is not available on a long-schedule day, a disabled customer must wait another year for a hearing. This proposal would remove that "not available" contingency from the proposition and ensure all customers timely hearings and decisions in the first instance. De-linking case scheduling from the scheduling wants of particular ALJs seems to be a great consumer-oriented idea. The devil, however, is in the details. _________________ David Traver
Attorney
Traver & Traver, S.C.
P.O. Box 188
North Prairie, WI 53153-0188
262-594-2096
http://ssaconnect.com http://traverlaw.com https://germaniapublishing.com http://www.jamespublishing.com/books/ssr.htm
This is nothing new. It has been tried before in individual OHA field offices. When I was in the Memphis office, someone came up with the bright idea of scheduling cases and sending out the notices without contacting the representatives. All this resulted in was a lot of postponments. Centralized scheduling will be a disaster. First, the legal world does not revolve around ODAR. Lawyers who handle these cases practice in other forums, most if not all superior. Second, ALJs have their own lives separate from ODAR, and this comes into consideration. Third, scheduling is not the problem. It is the sorry ALJs who hear their cases and sit on them. We had a pretty good system in Knoxville. We were given a calender with a designated month 3 months in the future for local cases. I held my hearings locally on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. If I had something planned I put "none" on those days. Beauty of it was, it was flexible. I had up to 20 days prior to those days to notify the scheduler of any changes. I see no problem with management going after ALJs who don't schedule a reasonable number cases, if they do, it will at get his/her attention.
ALJs have their own lives separate from ODAR, and this comes into consideration.
I find this to be a curious statement as if to say the ALJ's have better things to do with their private lives and can't be bothered with hearing cases. Maybe I am miss reading the intent.
Last I checked most folks who work for a living don't have the luxury of dictating what their work schedules will be like. ALJ's are paid well for what they do and some more than earn their pay but others see the position as an early oppurtunity for retirement with a full salary.
Makes perfect sense to me. In the real world, people who work have to fit their lives around their jobs, not the other way around.
I'm sure some judges work hard. But some need to have a fire lit under their butts, and some should just be fired outright. I speak from direct experience, I worked at an ODAR office not long ago. The judges think they have no bosses. Why should they get paid without any supervision over how much work they accomplish?
Quote:
Astrue said that most judges perform at or above the levels expected by the agency, but current law prevents him from disciplining the "bad apples." Some judges have been accused of fraud and domestic violence, he said, while others do not produce cases. One judge, for example, has not produced a case in seven years, he said.
It's beyond me why non performing judges can't be fired for not doing what they are paid to do. I wonder if the judge who hasn't done anything in 7 years is still working? If I were Astrue, I'd personally invite him to quit now, or face fraud charges and public shame.
Well guest, there a lot of good ALJs out there. I don't mind saying I was one of them for 30 years. I brought my cases in and got them out, they didn't hang around. You gone have bad apples, but using the shotgun approach allways fails. Go after the bad apples, you can't centralize scheduling.
I forgot to mention, in Knoxville, we did have a lot of attorneys and representaves handling these cases. Their calenders were full with non-social security cases, plus having to work around the 8 ALJs in our office trying to schedule cases around them. It ain't simple.
I agree scheduling aint simple no matter what your perspective. I just had a couple hearings cancelled due to other ODAR's monoployzing hearing rooms with VTC hearings that my local ODAR didnt have a room for us.
But just because it aint simple doesnt mean it shouldn't be handled in a different manner than it currently is. All too often I have called ODAR for status on cases to be told that its assigned to a particular judge but they only gave the scheduler X number of dates this month for hearings. That X was always a small #.
Holding all ALJ's to perform at a certain level wont hurt the good ones who already exceed expectations but it may get the underperformers off their behinds or maybe even better move them out of the ALJ corp all together.
I give. My 30 years experience with OHA comes to naught in the face of all y'all's brillliance and insight. This will go the way of all of OHA/ODAR's initiatives, such as the AO program and HPI. I had lunch yesterday with a former HOCALJ who found religion and quit and he has been traveling all over his region hearing raw or unpulled cases. I asked him what about your denials? He said nobody cares, they pull them when they can. They want the pay cases out. So don't give me any crap about sorry ALJs. ODAR doe's not care. They are going after the low producing ALJs for obvious reasons. Edib and televised hearings are not working out overall for techinical reasons, cases are not being pulled as fast as they were under the paper system, and the televised hearings have a lot of problems. You representatives who depend on SSA disability cases for your livelyhood, more power to you.
Told you, I give. No convincing you, you obviously are a lot smarter and knowledgable than me. I don't stand a chance going up against an intellect like you, go get'm son.
CONNECT
FAQ
Search
Register
Log in
