Fedweek

The FLRA can continue issuing decisions in labor-management disputes where the two agree. Image: Andrey Burmakin/Shutterstock.com

The FLRA board is now down to two members, split by party, as now-former chairman Ernest DuBester reached the end of the holdover period allowed after his term on the board had expired.

The FLRA can continue issuing decisions in labor-management disputes where the two agree, but in recent years the board often has split along party lines on major issues; such cases now will be set aside until a third member is confirmed.

With a 2-1 Republican majority during the Trump administration, the board issued a number of pro-management decisions, with DuBester dissenting. It has reversed some of those decisions since getting a 2-1 Democratic majority last year, with the lone Republican dissenting, following the confirmation of Susan Tsui Grundmann to replace a Republican whose term had expired.

The split likely puts a pause on further reversals, including a recently announced move to overturn a 2020 policy decision allowing employees to stop union dues withholding at any time, rather than only within windows at one-year intervals as had been the policy previously.

The Biden White House had nominated DuBester for another term but the Senate did not confirm him and it is unclear whether he will be renominated or whether the administration will nominate someone else. It meanwhile has named as chair Grundmann, who chaired the MSPB during the Obama administration and previously was the general counsel of the NFFE union among other positions.

Meanwhile, Biden has re-nominated Cathy Harris, the acting chair of the MSPB, to formally chair that board. All three MSPB seats were filled last year after a five-year period in which the board was unable to rule on appeals from decisions by its hearing officers due to a lack of a quorum, with all the seats being vacant after the first of those years.

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