Each year, a new board member is appointed by the president, with the blessing of the Senate, for a five-year term. D.C. 165, 126 L.R.R.M. 33, 35. . But the Union had offered to provide the Respondent its counterproposals by April 30, and it is likely that the parties could have resolved many, if not all, of their disputes by May 9. On the morning of Tuesday, April 22, the Union bargaining team, and Jones, Graham, and Lennie, toured Half Street, whose interiors were still mostly empty. 24. to be incorporated into the final Design Intent Drawings by May 9. 3 at 1. . If the Union had had the opportunity to argue for its proposals in February or March, it might have been able to persuade management, the architects, and GSA that the Agency needed an additional 10,000 or 12,000 square feet, rather than 8,000. 33, 42-43, 403; GC Ex. GC Ex. Durkin also asked if the Agency could put offices or workstations in space slated for socializing; the Agency did not have a response to that request. . . David M. Prouty. One member is appointed by the President to serve as chairman, chief executive officer, and chief administrative officer of the FLRA. The Board. Tr. 51 at 7. , 25 FLRA 787, 789-90 (1987). About two hours later, the Union team submitted five of its own counterproposals, which the Agency rejected. And even if the Union had been able to write up a full set of responses that evening, the parties would have needed much more than that day to properly address them and try to reach compromises. Tr. The Agency found significant problems with the architects early floor plans, which left the Agency with inadequate space to accommodate all of our requirements and forced the Agency to go back to GSA and obtain authorization to rent an additional 8,000 square feet of space at Half Street. (c) In addition to physical posting of paper notices, the Notice shall be distributed electronically, such as by email, posting on an intranet or internet site, or other electronic means, if the Agency customarily communicates with employees by such means. 121, 413, 448-49; GC Ex. Find historical decisions ofthe Assistant Secretary of Labor for Labor-Management Relations and the Federal Labor Relations Council, as well as Foreign Service Labor Relations Board decisions. The judge and the Authority rejected this theory and held that while it might be desirable from the Unions viewpoint to be a participant in the, decision-making process at an earlier stage, it is difficult to envision an obligation on SSAs part . My reaction to this was that we rejected this because it wasnt a comprehensive proposal. 3290 (D.C. Cir. According to its website, the NLRBs core duties are: The NLRB is a fairly small agency, with 26 regional offices dotted across the United States. NLRBs challenge fell within the third category and warranted judicial consideration. 112-14, 169. The agency also acts to prevent and remedy unfair labor practices committed by private sector employers and unions. Graham, who attended the meeting and who worked closely with the GSA contract officer, testified that once the comments on the preliminary drawings were submitted, it would have been difficult, if not impossible, for architects to change certain aspects of the design, such as the location of walls or the number or size of workspaces. Tr. Jones added that bargaining other than face-to-face bargaining would present a number of practical difficulties, saying, We couldnt possibly try to negotiate a subject as complicated as the complete relocation of the Agencys headquarters by email or telephone. Thus, as with the April negotiations, the bargaining in November failed to satisfy the requirements of the Statute. As an attorney, I am often asked what the difference is between employment law and labor law. At this time FLRA remains fully operational. In this regard, the GC asserts that there was no clear and unmistakable waiver of the Unions right to bargain to agreement or impasse. 34. Another union, the National Labor Relations Board Professional Association (the Professional Association), represents about 120 employees at headquarters. These include the Agencys refusal to furnish necessary information to the Union prior to April 23 and delaying the start of bargaining until many of the most significant decisions affecting the size and configuration of the new headquarters offices had been made. Yet on May 10, Agency officials submitted final comments on the floor plans to GSA and the architects, which paved the way for construction of the new offices to begin; and in subsequent months the Agency made other decisions on structural and design aspects of Half Street without negotiating with the Union. (All communication between the parties was by email, unless otherwise noted.) In sum, the parties could have engaged in productive discussions over the Unions proposals after April 24. Jones asked Durkin and Luther not to, saying, You agreed to a visual inspection and thats what we expect this to be. Tr. NLRB Deputy General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo and Chief Financial Officer Ron Crupi then informed the union officials about financial aspects of the move. The FLRA is the federal public sector counterpart to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which governs labor relations between private sector employees and employers. On Monday, April 21, the Union submitted forty-one bargaining proposals. Tr. 4 at 9. The agency is governed by a five-person board and a general counsel, who are each appointed by the U.S. president with the consent of the Senate. The Authority has stated that the location in which employees perform their duties, as well as other aspects of employees office environments, are matters at the very heart of the traditional meaning of conditions of employment.. 275; On April 28, Lennie offered further discussions about the BUs concerns that week, and the Union accepted. The agency also acts to prevent and remedy unfair labor practices committed by private sector employers and unions. There has been no senate-confirmed General Counsel since Julia Akins Clark left the post in January 2017, and no Acting General Counsel between November 2017 and March 24, 2021, when President Joe Biden named Charlotte A. Dye to be Acting General Counsel. 199. Tr. # 65880 | 2,202 words | 5 sources | MLA | 2006 |. One important difference between the two laws is the scope of the authorized collective bargaining process. The Board is supported by a General Counsel, who is also nominated by the President of the United States, with the advice and consent of the Senate, for a term of five years. Jones and Graham advised the Union team that they could only make minor changes or tweaks to the floor plans, which had first been shown to the Union only nine days earlier. The General Counsel contends that the ground rules agreement does not excuse the Respondents actions. The Union team found several of the Agency proposals vague, as the Agency offered to use its best efforts to obtain certain design features (for example, Proposal 8) and agreed to other features only to the extent [that] the architects [WDG] can incorporate them into the drawings (for example, Proposals 19 and 20). Although Jones insisted in March and April that the Agency had not received preliminary drawings or floor plans for the new offices until April 14, the record demonstrates that the architects had submitted a series of proposed floor plans to the Agency prior to April 14, and that Agency officials had been engaged in detailed discussions with the architect and with GSA about the adequacy (or inadequacy) of the space being allocated to the NLRB. These issues could and should have been addressed by the parties through bargaining at subsequent times over the next several months, right up to the date the NLRB finally moved to Half Street. 12. Paid for by the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO, 1625 L St., NW, Washington, DC, 20036. Resp. Accordingly, the relocation process and its accompanying deadlines did not excuse the Respondents refusal to continue bargaining between April 25 and May 9 or thereafter. ssues. The Respondent notes next that the Union withdrew its five initial counterproposals on April 29. In its opening statement at the hearing, Respondents counsel similarly asserted that it had no further bargaining obligations regarding the relocation after it bargained on April 23 and 24. And hiring an attorney who dabbles can lead to bad outcomes. Nobody disputes that. Tr. Tr. At the FLRA, decisions have been made on representation cases despite the union-petitioner withdrawing and mooting the cases; and, Employers in the private sector routinely hire union busters and use legal strategies to stall representation elections, and even after unions win an election, employers delay the bargaining process to frustrate workers efforts to secure a first contract; and. Also, according to Durkin, Lennie told attendees that they had been working with the architects for months to try to fit everything in, and that they had received design drawings a month prior and . Br. Find everything you need to know about filing a casewith the FLRA. Because the ground rules agreement cannot reasonably be interpreted as limiting the parties bargaining period to two days, I conclude that the Union did not waive its right to bargain until either an agreement was reached or the parties had come to an impasse. By the time the Agency made its limited offer in November to bargain, it had already implemented many aspects of the relocation plans, by making commitments with GSA and the architects. File a case with the FLRA, including unfair labor practice charges, arbitration appeals, and requests for impasse assistance. Asked to explain why the Union team did not stay, Durkin stated: [W]e couldnt continue that evening. 17 at 1. The Agencys chief negotiator asserted frequently during the bargaining sessions, and again at the hearing, that because the ground rules agreement specified that bargaining would occur on April 23 and 24, the Agency was entitled to stop bargaining after April 24, without regard to whether the parties had bargained to agreement or impasse, and without regard to whether further changes in conditions of employment occurred after April 25. 418. Immediately upon returning from lunch at 1:10 p.m., the Agency team requested a caucus, so that it could prepare counterproposals. . (a) Upon request, negotiate in good faith with the Union concerning the relocation of Agency headquarters to the extent required by the Statute, including participating in mediation under the auspices of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, if requested by either party, and if requested and necessary to implement the results of any agreement reached or resolution imposed by the Federal Service Impasses Panel, replace or substitute any features located within the new headquarters building that are subject to bargaining under the Statute. The NLRB is an independent federal agency enforcing the National Labor Relations Act, which guarantees the right of most private sector employees to organize, to engage in group efforts to improve their wages and working conditions, to determine whether to have unions as their bargaining representative, to engage in collective bargaining, and to The General Counsel argues that the Respondent violated 7116(a)(1) and (5) of the Statute when, on and after April 25, it unilaterally terminated bargaining with the Union regarding its relocation of its headquarters. GC Br. At the Agencys headquarters, the Union represents about sixty-two employees. Although the NLRA covers most employers, it does not . 134. The Agency could not sincerely claim that the parties were at impasse until they had engaged in full-fledged negotiations over those additional counterproposals. We were quite exhausted. Also, Jones acknowledged that [t]here wasnt a deadline on furniture for May 9th. Tr. 202. The FLRA administers the labor-management relations program for 2.1 million non-Postal federal employees worldwide, approximately 1.2 million of whom are represented in 2,200 bargaining units. 4 at 9. GC Ex. And then Harry Jones turns around and emails and suggests that we werent willing to continue bargaining, and suggested that our ground rules agreement somehow limited bargaining to those two days, which we disagreed with. Effective Friday July 31, 2020, the agency now extends the prohibition on in-person filings indefinitely. The obligation to bargain over a relocation arises when a lease is signed (if not earlier) and the union requests to bargain. Many of these proposals were not related to the size of individual offices or cubicles, and indeed the Agency itself had no way of properly or knowledgeably negotiating many of these subjects (such as the height of cubicle walls, frosting on glass, and options for furniture, flooring, and walls) in April or May. 23. 182-86; GC Ex. , retain . . The FLRA was adopted after President Jimmy Carter sought legislation to bring comprehensive reform to civil service system and regularize federal labor relations. Graham testified that the Agencys comments to GSA incorporated . More information to follow. In this vein, the Agency continued to submit changes to the design drawings to GSA and to make decisions about furniture options (most significantly, adopting GSAs FIT program, which drastically limited the remaining furniture choices), window and glass treatments, lighting, and cubicle height. At least in some respects, the November 24 teleconference offered the Union a hope of shaping the Agencys furniture choices before those choices were finalized in December. Tr. 32, 264. On the other hand, if the Agency had not yet implemented its plans concerning furniture for the new headquarters in late November, the question arises whether its offer to bargain on this issue on November 24 satisfied its duty to bargain. 43 at 9, 23, 29, 36, 49), and others dated April 2 (. [W]hen a respondent claims as a defense to an alleged unfair labor practice that a specific provision of the parties collective bargaining agreement permitted its actions alleged to constitute an unfair labor practice, the Authority, including its administrative law judges, will determine the meaning of the parties collective bargaining agreement and will resolve the unfair labor practice complaint accordingly. GC Ex. 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