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Office of the General Counsel
OPM Reference No. S9601413
[XXX]
Dear [XXX]:
This responds to your request that we review your claim for $5,640.89 in back pay (environmental differential) from September 24,1988 to September 14, 1994, the date when you initially submitted your claim to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), your employing agency. Your employing agency advises that, before you retired from Federal service and at the time that your claim arose, you were part of a unit covered by a Collective Bargaining Agreement.
Our Office cannot take jurisdiction over the claim of a Federal employee on a matter that, when the claim arose, was subject to the negotiated grievance procedure under a collective bargaining agreement between the employees agency and union, unless that matter was specifically excluded from the agreements grievance procedure. This is because the courts have found that Congress intended that such a grievance procedure would be the exclusive remedy for matters not excluded from the grievance process. Cecil E. Riggs, et al., 71 Comp. Gen. 374 (1992). Accordingly, since the claim you filed was subject to negotiated grievance procedures at the time that it arose, we must decline to assert jurisdiction or issue a decision concerning this matter.
Sincerely,
Jo-Ann Chabot
Attorney Advisor
cc. [AGENCY]