willing to continue bargaining regarding the headquarters relocation by various means, including but not limited to face-to-face bargaining, telephonic bargaining, email and video conferencing. Investopedia requires writers to use primary sources to support their work. Discussion. 322.) Declaring an impasse is significant, because it communicates to the opposing side that the time for invoking impasse procedures has arrived. . 47 at 1. . Featherbedding describes an unlawful practice of forcing employers to increase labor costs, such as hiring unnecessary workers. Finally, the GC submits that the Respondents [h]alf-hearted, delayed (by months) and qualified bargaining offers in November 2014 and January 2015 did not cure its previous refusals to bargain. Ch. Finally, it should be emphasized, as the Authority did in. If the parties had truly intended to establish a fixed time period for the negotiation of all issues related to the Agencys relocation, it could have done so, simply by stating that April 24 would be the last day for bargaining and by further specifying a fixed period for engaging in mediation and invoking FSIP assistance. . 182-86; GC Ex. The Board has five Members and primarily acts as a quasi-judicial body in deciding cases on the basis of formal records in administrative proceedings. Notwithstanding the lack of an agreement with the Union on the impact and implementation of the relocation, the Agency asserts that it fulfilled its bargaining obligation because (1) the Union had waived its right to bargain beyond April 24 by signing the ground rules agreement, and (2) the negotiations reached impasse on April 24. As part of this process, the Agency established the Space Advisory Committee around November 2012. 108. 38. Other labor laws of note are the Railway Labor Act (RLA), the Federal Labor Relations Act (FLRA), as well as state labor laws that govern bargaining rights of state employees. Finally, a petitioners contention that the challenged regulation should be amended or rescinded because it conflicts from the statute from which its authority derives is reviewable outside the statutory limitations period. GC Ex. 25. 7101-7135 (the Statute), and the Rules and Regulations of the Federal Labor Relations Authority (the Authority or FLRA), 5 C.F.R. While denying that it had floor plans of the existing offices, the Agency prevented Union officials from taking. The Railway Labor Act (RLA) is a federal law that was passed in 1926 to govern labor relations in the railroad industry, and amended in 1936 to include the airline industry. Where they mainly differ is in the portion of the workforce they serve. some of the areas [of] discussions that we had with the Union, such as the Unions suggestion to have a second nursing room. (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. The NLRB continues to be in the news. The NLRB Union challenged regulations that were promulgated by the Federal Labor Relations Authority on January 17, 1980, nearly seven years prior to the appeal. Since its inception in 1935, the NLRB has successfully defended the rights of private-sector employees across all types of industries. Tr. Durkin added, Weve used email exchanges, teleconference exchanges, and videoconference exchanges with the Agency numerous times, at the drop of a hat, including over this relocation process and over the ground rules. 375. (a fact the Agency belatedly understood several months later, when it offered to return to the table), and the Agencys termination of bargaining in April was arbitrary and unreasonable. . Issued, Washington, D.C., February 11, 2016, Date: _________________ By: _______________________________________________, Chairman, National Labor Relations Board (Signature), Date: _________________ By: ______________________________________________, General Counsel, National Labor Relations Board (Signature), Collaboration and Alternative Dispute Resolution Office (CADRO), Archival Decisions, Legislative History, & Foreign Service Decisions, NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD AND NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD UNION. On February25, Jones provided Durkin some additional information about Half Street, but still did not provide any drawings. It didnt have to be face-to-face. 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. Also on February 5, Durkin emailed Jones an information request, asking for any and all documents and records showing the floor plan, layout and/or design, for the Half Street building, as well as a timeline for the relocation process. Iagree with the Union that this was not sufficient time for the Union to respond fully to the Agencys counterproposals. Tr. Larry Sutton, the GSA representative on the project, spoke next. Tr. Tr. When the parties began face-to-face negotiations on April 23, they had signed off on the ground rules less than a week earlier. , 41 FLRA at 340 n.*. With regard to Proposal 14 that interior office windows have an opaque glaze or frosted glass Jones said, we havent chosen yet to frost or not frost, but we want it to be uniform, so we cant have individual people in individual offices choosing whether to have theirs frosted or not. Tr. - Legal Principles in this Case for Law Students. A conference call discussing furniture issues was conducted on that date, although the Union told Jones it did not consider the discussion to satisfy the Agencys statutory duty to bargain. Tr. 23. Later in the conversation, Luther testified, Jones said the Agency wanted to share the drawings with all of the parties at the same time, but they didnt have a sufficient number of the drawings at that point. First, the Agency had already made the decision, with GSA, to utilize GSAs FIT program, which significantly narrowed the remaining options for furniture. WHEREAS: 409; On April 7, an architect from WDG emailed Crayton and Graham the latest drawings, for their review and comment. 318. Prior to this swing move occurring, the Agency and the Union engaged in formal negotiations and executed a Memorandum of Agreement on the subject on December11. Were moving from [Franklin Court] to . As the judge noted in, There are a number of signs indicating that the parties were still in the early stages of bargaining when the Agency walked away from the table. The Union team had not seen the entire Franklin Court facility the previous day, so the parties agreed to spend the morning continuing Tuesdays walk-through. Jones did not articulate his understanding of paragraph 2 to the Union team until substantive negotiations had begun on April 23, and the Union immediately disputed his understanding. The Agencys bargaining team consisted of managers based at headquarters, and the Agencys executive leadership inserted itself into the dispute more than once. GC Ex. Tr. Based on the entire record, including my observation of the witnesses and their demeanor, I make the following findings of fact, conclusions of law, and recommendations. 5 C.F.R. But I find the determination of the Authority in the, situation strikingly similar to ours, to be instructive and persuasive. National Labor Relations Board. . 13. Labor Union: Definition, History, and Examples. The Authority viewed the applicable "law" to be the "management rights" provision under section 7106 of the FSLMRS. . At a Space Advisory Committee meeting on October 15, Crayton and WDG briefed the members about the construction schedule and options for furniture and window frosting at Half Street. We had bargained all day. It is instructive at this point to take a step back and look at the, employees they thought they would move by September to a specific location. [5] In August 2021, President Biden nominated eight-year assistant general counsel Kurt Rumsfeld to the position.[6]. . Tr. National Labor Relations Board. View the legislative history of the Federal Service Labor-ManagementRelations Statute, the Civil Service Reform Act, andthe Foreign Service Act. Jones suggested meeting April 15-17, with the first day spent touring Half Street and hearing from officials involved in the move, and Durkin agreed. What We Do., National Labor Relations Board. Employment laws are essentially all employment-related laws that are not labor laws. 116. The primary responsibilities of the FLRA are to: Resolve complaints of unfair labor practices (ULPs). Tr. The Union team also asked about furniture. 18, 19. GC Ex. More information to follow. GC Ex. Watch free online FLRA trainings on our Youtube channel and dont forget to subscribe to receive updates on new videos. The caucus lasted from approximately 1:15 to 4:00 p.m., at which time the Agency transmitted a list of twenty-three counterproposals to the Union by email. GSA signed a lease on behalf of the Agency, on January 29, 2014. for the Agencys new headquarters space, located in a newly constructed building at 1015 Half Street, S.E., Washington, D.C. (Half Street). In response to Proposal 12 that employees who had window offices at Franklin Court would have the same at Half Street Jones stated, well try to see how many window offices we can get in the Washington Resident Office, but again they are the only people who have offices.. Griffin acknowledged that that was a problem . Tr. OurRegional Offices investigate unfairlaborpractice charges, conduct union elections, provide training, and more. 2023 American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, AFLCIO, 43rd International Convention - Boston, MA (2018). GC Ex. In other words, the paragraph simply specified the dates on which bargaining would be conducted. Durkin testified that around this time, the Union team told the Agency team that they were willing to continue bargaining, but we cant continue and expect to wrap up bargaining that night. Tr. Let us know what you think about our new and improved website by emailing us at EngagetheFLRA@flra.gov. But, he continued, there is not going to be ongoing bargaining. According to Luther, Sutton also said that there had been a great deal of work with [various Agency officials] . What is the difference between NLRB and FLRA? The Union team consisted of Julia Durkin, an attorney at the Agencys Denver Regional Office, who served as a local president and had bargained over an office move in Denver (Tr. The National Labor Relations Board is an independent federal agency vested with the power to safeguard employees' rights to organize and to determine whether to have unions as their bargaining representative. It protects the rights of most private-sector employees, who can petition it for help in efforts to collectively bargain for better wages and working conditions. 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. For all of the above reasons, the Agency failed to bargain in good faith and violated 7116(a)(1) and (5) of the Statute. 1974 Health Care Amendments., National Labor Relations Board. So I dont know we didnt know where to go from there with the Agency rejecting its own proposals; how we could have productively bargained fully that night. Gwynne A. Wilcox. At 6:11 p.m., the Union sent the Agency a document titled Unions Initial response to Agencys counterproposal of 4/24/14. Tr. 418. I certainly if we had agreed to stay late and continue the bargaining into Thursday evening and we had been making progress, if progress had been made on Thursday evening, I certainly had the authority to say to them book another night in your hotel; lets pick up on Friday; change your airline tickets to fly back on Saturday. 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. This is especially true for proposals calling for future bargaining over specific issues, such as furniture (Proposal 36), boxes for moving personal items (Proposal37), and commuting grace periods (Proposal 37). Unlike the Unions proposed ground rules, the Agencys proposals did not refer to an initial bargaining session.. Tr. . When you visit the site, Dotdash Meredith and its partners may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. It could be by teleconference or videoconference. Substantive bargaining did not begin until the second day, at which time the parties discussed most of the forty-one proposals submitted by the Union. 288, 367, 465. 106. 121. Teams Virtual Training 10am - 12:00pm EST, Teams Virtual Training 11:00am - 12:00pm EST, U.S. Forest Service, Collbran Job Corps Civilian, Conservation Center, Collbran, CO (Agency) and National Federation of Federal Employees, IAMAW, AFL-CIO (Petitioner/Labor Organization), American Federation of Government Employees, Local 1858 (Union) and United States Department of the Arrmy, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama (Agency), National Treasury Employees Union (Union) and United States Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service (Agency), Collaboration and Alternative Dispute Resolution Office (CADRO), Archival Decisions, Legislative History, & Foreign Service Decisions, Meetings under the Statute, Investigatory Examinations, Formal Discussions, Bypasses, Susan Tsui Grundmann Designated FLRA Chairman, The FLRA Proposes Revising Its Regulations, and Revoking a Related Policy Statement, Concerning the Revocation of Written Assignments for the Payment of Union Dues, The FLRA Releases Training Video on Labor Management Forums, The FLRA and its Recognized Union of Authority Employees Reestablish Internal Labor-Management Forum, FLRA Invites Customer Input on Representation Issue, FLRA Swears in Member Susan Tsui Grundmann. measurements of those offices. With regard to Proposal 1, which required the Agency to keep the Union informed about the relocation, Jones said it has always been our intention to keep the Union informed. And so we went through . Durkin (along with Nixon and later Luther) responded, [N]o, the Agency has to continue bargaining. Later that day, Stephen Sloper, a member of the Unions Executive Committee, asked FMCS Mediator Kurt Saunders to mediate the dispute. . Tr. On the first day of the hearing, the GC moved to amend the complaint to allege, On April 25, 2014, and on May 15, 2014, the Respondent . 401. 43 at 9, 23, 29, 36, 49), and others dated April 2 (. (b) Post at all offices of the Agency where bargaining unit employees are located, copies of the attached Notice on forms to be furnished by the Federal Labor Relations Authority. 30-31, 215-16); Lisabeth Luther, a compliance officer based in the Indianapolis Regional Office (Tr. We dont intend to waste our time, and that of a mediator, to engage in a useless undertaking.. Tests and elements required to prove violations differ from one law to the next; the exclusions and exemptions regarding which employers and employees are and are not covered can be different; and the procedures that govern the complaint processes can vary significantly. The list of these laws is long and growing. Otherwise, if retroactivity of any term is dependent on the Respondents consent, the negotiations are likely to be as fruitless as those on April 23 and 24. On April 16, the Union submitted a second information request, asking for documents showing the specific spaces and offices assigned to bargaining unit employees and to the Union in the new building; the rooms and spaces assigned for common purposes and as other than personal workspace; and the locations and dimensions of these spaces. . The National Labor Relations Board is a federal agency that enforces the National Labor Relations Act. But this interpretation requires an emphasis on selective phrases in the agreement, at the expense of its context. The Railway Labor Act (RLA) was passed by Congress 9 years before the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA): 1926 and 1935 respectively. This is an unfair labor practice (ULP) proceeding under the Federal Service. They include federal laws such as the: State laws that are typically considered employment laws include each states various wage and hour laws, wage payment laws, and leave laws. , 41 FLRA at 350-51. 264). 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.
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