The FLRA is closing its Boston regional office as of Friday, following the recent closure of the Dallas office and leaving the agency with just five.
New unfair labor practice charges and other cases arising from the states under the Boston office generally are to be sent to the Washington D.C. office and cases currently pending at the Boston office will be reassigned there. The exception is that cases from Puerto Rico are to go to the Chicago office.
The FLRA is one of the first agencies to carry out such consolidations under the administration’s government reorganization drive. The agency has said that its work can be handled out of just five offices and that the closings will reduce operating and rental costs. Federal unions, backed by some members of Congress, meanwhile have opposed the closings as an erosion of federal employee organizational rights and have raised the prospect of blocking the closings through the budget process. However, the FLRA’s budget is part of a larger bill that won’t be finalized for at least another several weeks; by that time the Boston office will already be closed, as the Dallas office is already.
A notice in the Federal Register announcing the closing makes note of–but does not include–an unusual dissent by one of the three members of its governing board to the similar announcement in September for closing the Dallas office. That dissent said that “now is the worst time to downsize further a dispute resolution agency like the FLRA … given the current effort to streamline federal government agencies, there is very likely to be an increase in the number of grievances and labor-management disputes.”
