Summary of National Council on Federal Labor-Management Relations Meeting, November 3, 2010
Friday, November 5, 2010(Federal Workers Alliance, Subcommittee on Partnership)
The National Council on Federal
Labor-Management Relations held its
8th meeting on November 3,
2010.
The following items were on the
Council’s agenda for
consideration:
1.
SSA’s Implementation
Plan – The
Council approved and certified the Social
Security Administration’s Implementation
Plan.
SSA’s Implementation Plan was the last
of approximately 51 agency/department plans to
be certified. With the certification of
SSA’s plans labor and management can finally
begin working on their respective forums at the
agency. Management had refused to
meet in the forums until the plan was
certified.
2.
Draft Letter to Agencies Regarding Forum
Establishment and Predecisional
Involvement – At its
meeting in October, the Council directed
Co-chair John Berry to draft a letter reminding
the agencies of their obligation under sec.
3(a)(ii) of the E.O - requiring agencies to
“allow employees and their union
representatives to have pre-decisional
involvement in all workplace matters to the
fullest extent practicable, without regard to
whether those matters are negotiable subjects
of bargaining under 5 USC 7106”. At the
October meeting, there was extensive discussion
and concern expressed by the labor members that
pre-decisional involvement was not taking place
as required by the E.O. Labor
requested that Co-chair Berry send a letter to
the agency heads reminding them that the E.O.
is clear on PDI and that allowing unions to
engage in PDI is consistent with the spirit of
the E.O. The letter has been drafted, but is
currently being reviewed by OMB.
Apparently, there is some concern that
the letter may be interpreted as requiring
agencies to allow unions pre-decisional
involvement in budgetary matters.
Co-chair Berry reported that the letter
is expected to be sent to the members for
review and comment before the Council’s
December meeting.
3.
Metrics Guidance - The Council approved the Metrics
Guidance that is to be used by Labor-Management
forums at all levels. The National Council
identified three objectives which should be
measured:
1)
Improvement of agency’s ability to
accomplish its mission and deliver high quality
products, services, and protection to the
public;
2)
Improvement in quality of employee
worklife; and,
3)
Improvement of the labor-management
relations climate.
The first major deadline is December
31, 2010 – All forums will internally
identify the issues, goals and metrics they
will be reporting on a baseline. The
guidance will eventually be posted on the
National Council’s website, but unions are
encouraged to forward the guidance document
within their
organizations.
4.
Telework Mobile
Workday - The
Council formed a work group to study and make
recommendations on teleworking for federal
employees. The work group met in
October to discuss how a mobile work day would
look and the barriers to implementing a mobile
work day.
There were differences of opinions
concerning the mission/objective and charter of
the work group. Labor members believe the
Council should address telework in a broader
sense.
Management members believe the Council
should limit the discussion to teleworking in
cases of emergencies and snow days.
Labor thinks the
Council should not limit the discussion to snow
days, but concentrate on the impediments to
implementing telework. Labor
reminded the Council that unions have been
negotiating telework in their contracts for
over 20 years and that limiting the discussion
to snow days is an insult. Labor
suggested the work group review some of the
contracts negotiated for suggestions on the
type of jobs that can be teleworked. Labor
believes that if telework is offered,
employees’ productivity will increase.
Not all of labor
appeared to favor an expanded view of telework
for the Council to address. Some
labor members expressed concern that
teleworking might lead to contracting out of
jobs if it can be shown that certain jobs can
be performed off-site. Some
labor members were also concerned about the
political ramifications of government workers
working from home. It was noted that a lot of
Republicans who won their elections on November
2, did so by promising to cut the federal
budget by cutting the federal workforce. These
members were concerned about a public
perception that the Council was supporting
federal employees being paid to stay at
home.
Management’s
view – According to
management, the Council’s focus should be on
addressing telework for emergencies (such as a
terrorist attack) and snow days to provide
“continuity of operations”. OMB Acting
Director and Co-chair Jeff Zeints expressed
concern about budgetary and policy
implications. OMB believes a broader
discussion of telework would result in the
Council setting policy for the administration
on telework and believes that the Council does
not have that authority. OMB is
also concerned about the cost of employees’
teleworking at a time when agencies are being
told they have to cut.
Co-chair Berry stated that the challenge
is getting managers to define work so that
employees can perform their work from more
places than their desks. He
noted that the President wants a “flexible,
resilient workforce.”
The Council was unable
to resolve the issue, but agreed that
information should be gather by looking at
collective bargaining agreements. The
work group will be examining data that will
help to determine the constraints to
teleworking; what is reasonable going forward;
and the way forward for the
Council.
(b)(1) Pilot
Project – The
Council provided a list of agencies and unions
that are participating in permissive subjects
of bargaining. AFGE requested that the
Department of Homeland Security (FEMA) be
removed from the list because the agency is
seeking credit for negotiating topics that
labor and management had been negotiating under
the parties’ collective bargaining agreement
prior to the Executive Order. Labor
expressed concern that the limited number of
participating agencies and topics will not
provide an accurate picture on the success of
negotiating permissive subjects. .
Council member Michael Filler
(Teamsters) reported that Jacksonville
Naval Depot management opposed his
observing the FLRA/FMCS labor-management
training conducted by management even after he
identified himself as a National Council member
and after he notified management that he was
only there to observe the session. In
response, the Council is considering visiting
various forums to see how they are
working.
The Federal Labor Relations
Authority continues to offer training on the
Executive Order and has updated its website
with new dates:
http://www.flra.gov/OGC_Statutory_Training.
The FLRA also provides training to
participating agencies and unions on (b)(1)
negotiations.
The Council’s next
meeting is scheduled for December 1,
2010.
- Table of
Pilots