Federal Manager's Daily Report

HHS has imposed a contract affecting employees there in a dispute that has become something of an example of strained labor-management relations under the Trump administration.

Although negotiations with the NTEU union are at an impasse over a number of issues, the department said it was imposing the terms of its offer as a new contract effective tomorrow (May 2), prompting the union to file yet another complaint. Among other provisions, the union says, the contract would give management more authority to “dramatically scale back telework and alternative work schedules or deny more leave requests.”

The contract is the latest in a series of similar disputes dating to issuance of executive orders last May that encouraged agencies to take restrictive positions on a host of issues and to shorten the bargaining process. The Federal Service Impasses Panel, an arm of the FLRA, had recently sided with management on some two dozen disputed provisions while sending six others back to the bargaining table.

The union’s new complaint alleges that it is illegal for management to impose portions of a contract while other portions are still pending resolution.