Alex Bastani is currently the President of AFGE Local 12. A twenty-two year Department of Labor employee, Alex has served as either a steward or officer with Local 12 for over eighteen years. Mr. Bastani led the Local’s fight against A-76 (privatization of federal jobs) during the Bush administration and through a four year pronged approach of litigation; lobbying, mobilization and media outreach was able to cancel a contract of over 70 million dollars and save the jobs of at least one hundred Local 12 bargaining unit employees.
Alex has handled dozens of arbitrations and hundreds of grievances and won cases concerning removals, suspensions, back pay, equal pay for equal work, and the right of federal employees to exercise their religious beliefs at the workplace. Alex previously served as Executive Vice President of Local 12 where he managed the Local’s extensive arbitration case load and created and developed the Local’s legal intern program that has now trained a dozen law students.
The Local 12 Labor Heritage Month Celebration was created under Alex’s term as Local President which has included illustrious guest speakers such as U.S. Senator Barbara Mikulski, United Mine Workers President Cecil Roberts, Writer-Activist Barbara Ehrenreich, and Joe Krebs, President of the Washington-Baltimore Local of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. Alex graduated with Bachelors in Economics and Political Science from Boston University, and he has a law degree from George Mason University School of Law.
Scott has been an Economist at BLS- Producer Price Index- since 1985.
Scott received his undergraduate BS/BA in Finance and Economics at American University in Washington, D.C. and received his Graduate, MBA in Marketing from Loyola College in Baltimore, Maryland. He also received a Graduate- MA in Professional Writing from Towson University in Towson, Maryland.
Scott has been married since 1986 and has one daughter who is now President of the Debate Team at Catonsville High School. Scott’s short term goal is to get Local 12 membership back up to 1,000 members and his long term goal is to Unionize Wal-Mart.
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You can reach him at the FPB Union Office at 202.693.6444
Dino joined Local 12 in 1979 when I started at DOL, became a steward the following year, and has been a union representative for the past 35 years. Dino has served as a Local 12 representative on the safety and health committee since 1982, he was chief negotiator for the original transit subsidy Local 12 won in 1997 after a 5-year wrangle with management, technical representative on the technology arbitration which won Local 12 the ability to negotiate the impact of technology changes in 2003, he has been a member of the BLS Labor-Management Relations Committee since 1995, and Local 12 Secretary since 2010. Dino has also served as secretary for the neighborhood citizens association and chaired the AFGE National Capital Area Council election committee. The union is the only consistent, effective voice government workers have, whether in front of the managers in our offices or the ultimate managers in the White House and Congress which determine our pay and write the laws setting our benefits and regulations affecting our day-to-day working conditions.
Kevin joined Local 12 on the first day of his employment at BLS (1997), and has served as a steward since approximately 1999. In addition, he has served as a “technical representative” (i.e. an assistant to arbitration representatives) on several arbitrations, and as an arbitration representative on 2 or 3 arbitrations themselves. He considers himself quite fortunate to have been taught, as a steward, primarily by John Morton and Alex Bastani.
In his tenure as Treasurer, Kevin spent a week (of his own annual leave) in training at the National Labor College, where he learned the necessary tools to convert the local’s books from Excel spreadsheets to QuickBooks Pro. When he effected this conversion back in July and August of 2008, the result was to implement savings of $5,000 to $7,000 every year on the annual audit. Additionally, the training at the National Labor College also emphasized the new system called “Case Track”, whose potential importance Kevin was finally able to impress (successfully) upon Local 12.
Kevin holds a Bachelor’s in Political Science from the University of North Carolina @ Chapel Hill and a Master’s in Economics from the University of Maine. He also earned a Bachelor's Degree in Accounting at the University of the District of Columbia.
Kevin is a proud native of Massachusetts.
375 E. St. SW, Washington, DC 20024
Patriot Plaza II, 12th floor
On May 17, 2014, the 14th District of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Caucus delegates, elected one of our own, Stephanie Graf, as the new National Women’s Advisory Coordinator (NWAC). Ms. Graf is the Agency Vice-President for the Employment and Training Administration, at the U.S. Department of Labor. Ms. Graf will assist in the oversight of Affirmative Action programs for women in Federal and D.C. government agencies; the elimination of employment discrimination based upon sex; and provide the necessary consultation, services, and representation to some 60+ Locals in support of women's programs and organizations. Ms. Graf’s area of coverage is the D.C. Metropolitan area and Europe.
Ms. Graf, originally from Indiana, is a United States Army retiree, and previously served as a Union Steward with the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), and the National Council of Field Labor Locals (NCFLL). She is well versed on fighting for employees with barriers to employment, including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Military Sexual Trauma, and insuring the fair treatment of all employees.
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Judith spent many years as a senior program analyst in OSHA’s Directorate of Cooperative and State Programs. She helped develop and improve the Voluntary Protection Programs (VPP), which recognize worksites where labor-management trust and cooperative action actually exist, at least in the pursuit of worker safety and health. In late 2011 she moved to OSHA’s Directorate of Construction. Judith holds a BA in English from the University of Pittsburgh. Defining moments in Judith’s DOL career include
· Reading The Autobiography of Mother Jones and Kirstin Downey’s The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life of Frances Perkins, FDR'S Secretary of Labor and His Moral Conscience
· Successfully representing a group of female African-American DOL employees who filed grievances alleging race and sex discrimination in a merit staffing action.
· Conducting a simple analysis of DOL statistical data that showed a DOL-wide glass ceiling above the GS-12 level for female and minority employees. This data was instrumental in the settlement of a subsequent group complaint of sex discrimination. In both cases, all complainants won retroactive promotions with full backpay.
· Helping a mine worker’s widow obtain desperately needed pension benefits by the simple act of sharing information - explaining how she could contact her local office of the United Mine Workers.
· And many years later, after a long period of digging in and not making waves, coming to realize once again that she could not maintain silence in the face of injustice. She took on the challenges and satisfactions of an activist Local 12 Steward in OSHA.
OSHA bargaining unit members elected Judith their Agency Vice President in March 2012.
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Sarah Starrett joined the Department of Labor in February 2008. She works in the Office of the Solicitor, Fair Labor Standards Act Division, providing legal advice and handling trial and appellate litigation involving the Fair Labor Standards Act, Service Contract Act, and various whistleblower statutes. She also assists in developing regulations and Department policies involving the Family and Medical Leave Act and immigrant guest worker visa programs. She also serves as Agency Vice President for American Federation of Government Employees (“AFGE”) Local 12, and in that capacity is currently representing headquarters employees in collective bargaining negotiations with Department of Labor management.
Throughout her career, she has represented employees and labor unions in a wide variety of labor and employment litigation. From 2005-2008, she was a national staff attorney for the American Federation of Government Employees, where she represented AFGE members and the union as a whole in federal courts, before the EEOC, in arbitration cases, and in contract negotiations. Working as part of a multi-union coalition, she helped protect federal employees’ collective bargaining, adverse action and appeal rights against the Bush administration attacks represented by the DoD National Security Personnel System (“NSPS”), and DHS Max HR personnel system.
Prior to joining AFGE, she was a partner/shareholder in the law firm of Beins, Axelrod, Kraft, Gibson & Gleason, P.C., where she also represented federal employees, as well as public-sector and private-sector labor unions both nationally and locally, and served as a staff attorney at the United Mine Workers of America International Union. She came to Washington in 1991 as a Fellow at the Institute for Public Representation at Georgetown University Law Center, after a clerkship with the Honorable Warren Ferguson on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
She earned her bachelor’s degree cum laude from Wesleyan University, and her J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law. She also holds an LL.M. degree in Advocacy from Georgetown University Law Center.
Sarah is married, with three children, and in her spare time is an active soccer mom, swim team mom and sings in her local church choir.
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