If you are attempting to enforce a provision of your collective bargaining agreement, you will need the union to prosecute the grievance or at least allow you to have a private attorney prosecute the grievance and represent you at the arbitration on the union’s behalf. You cannot go proceed with a grievance without the union’s approval, because the CBA is between the Union and the State of Massachusetts. It is not an agreement between the State and each individual employee.

Some unions will not allow a non-union lawyer to be involved in union matters while others will allow it, so long as the employee agrees to pay the lawyer himself or herself.

If you have individual rights under civil service law, for example, you can use a private attorney to challenge any adverse action without the union’s assent.

If you’re on unpaid administrative leave, you are not accruing “credible service” towards retirement, because you’re not being paid and no retirement deductions are being made.

Generally, the only way that you can lose your retirement benefits is for the following: misappropriation of Funds or Property, receiving a final conviction under G.L. c. 268A, § 2 (public corruption), or G.L. c. 265, § 25 (extortion by police or licensing authority),a final conviction of a criminal offense “involving violation of the laws applicable to [your] office,” or if you are terminated for “moral turpitude.”