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By: FEDweek StaffWhile the Biden administration already has revoked the two key Trump administration executive orders restricting bargaining and official time, unions are looking for more still more changes in labor-management practices.
Biden already has changed the leadership of the EEOC and the FLRA from Republican to Democratic; although the membership of their governing boards has not changed, federal unions see the changes as potentially changing policies of both.
The AFGE union, for example, is calling on the EEOC to suspend implementation of an internal policy it adopted in the Trump administration’s late days, ending a decades-long practice of automatically allowing official time for union officials representing other employees in EEO cases. Under the new policy, official time for that purpose would be subject to bargaining at each agency.
Unions are looking to the FLRA to similarly reverse a number of positions it adopted over the last year that were issued as policy statements, not as binding precedent. The new chairman, a Democrat who objected to each of those policies, dissented as the board voted 2-1 on each of those policies and the term of one of the Republicans expires in mid-year when he would be replaced by a Democrat.
Those included to: allow federal employees who are paying dues to stop those payments at any time after a year has passed, rather than being restricted to only one point during a year; bar employees from using official time for grass-roots type lobbying of Congress; require bargaining on so-called “zipper” clauses, which management typically proposes, to ban or limit mid-term bargaining during the period of a contract; state that once the original term of a ends, an agency head carry out changes in laws or policies since its inception even if negotiations are still ongoing; and set a higher standard for when management is obligated to bargain over changes it makes to certain working conditions for employees.
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