The following article by Joe Davidson was posted on the Washington Post website March 23, 2018:
The Federal Labor Relations Authority is a tiny speck among Uncle Sam’s arsenal of agencies, akin to a freckle next to the big muscle of his Defense Department.
Yet the FLRA is emerging as a noteworthy example in President Trump’s efforts to undermine the ability of labor organizations to represent federal employees, while shrinking government and diluting services.
Following White House directives on reorganization and workforce reduction, the FLRA plans to close two regional offices, in Boston and Dallas, leaving just five. An agency budget justification for fiscal 2019 cites “workload, costs, and operating efficiencies.” The authority is a quasi-judicial body with three members, now two Republicans and a Democrat, appointed by the president.
Opposition to the closings is mounting.
Describing the move as “mean spirited,” Debbie Jennings, president of International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers Local 4, which represents workers at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, said “it would be very difficult to adjudicate any unfair labor practice that we would file.”
Eight former FLRA regional directors condemned the plan, calling it a “serious error” and saying it would “negatively impact the very significant progress which has been made in recent years to reduce reliance on confrontational labor relations in the federal sector.”
In a letter to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, the former officials, who are retired Senior Executive Service civil servants, said the value of having staff available in regions “was demonstrated again and again over the years” and pointed to regularly scheduled regional training for both labor and management. Three of the former directors worked in Boston or Dallas.
The FLRA confronts a big mission with about 120 staffers. It administers and resolves labor-management relations and disputes involving more than 2 million federal employees, including 1.2 million represented in 2,200 bargaining units. Among its duties is deciding unfair labor practice charges that can be filed by unions or agencies. Federal unions represent all employees in a bargaining unit, not just those who are dues paying members.
Because the overwhelming number of unfair labor practice (ULP) complaints are filed in regional offices by unions, closing Boston and Dallas will weaken the ability of federal labor organizations to rectify workplace wrongs. Agency actions that unions want to challenge will remain in place during a process stretched by backlogs. The situation is aggravated because the agency has no general counsel, the official who issues the FLRA complaints necessary for the agency to prosecute a complaint.
Questions and answers on the agency’s website make it clear the lack of a general counsel will slow the process:
“If an investigation confirms that a ULP charge has merit, will a ULP complaint be issued?”
“Not immediately. ULP complaints may only be issued when the FLRA has a General Counsel.”
Closing two regional offices in a small, already trimmed down agency can make a significant difference. Expect backlogs to grow. That, along with the general counsel vacancy, works to the advantage of agency management, while diminishing the ability of unions to respond. This fits in nicely with other Trump efforts to erode the influence of federal labor organizations.
“The closing of FLRA offices is just another example of this administration’s irreverence for public employees and the right of all workers,” said David Borer, general counsel of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE). “The two office closures will only exacerbate an already overburdened system, greatly slowing or removing all together [the] ability to protect and represent employee rights.”
The FLRA’s public affairs office did not respond to requests for comment.
Shutting the regional offices comes amid other administration actions that undermine organized labor.
This month, AFGE filed an unfair labor complaint with the FLRA against the Education Department after it — in a rare, if not unheard-of action — unilaterally imposed a contract that union members had overwhelmingly rejected. In February, the administration’s fiscal 2019 budget proposal implicitly blamed unions for “employer-employee relations activities [that] currently consume considerable management time and taxpayer resources, and may negatively impact efficiency, effectiveness, cost of operations, and employee accountability and performance.” The budget appendix added that union “contracts can have a significant impact on agency performance, workplace productivity, and employee satisfaction.” In September, Trump abolished labor-management forums, established by President Barack Obama to promote better labor-management communication.
FLRA staffing had already declined by 45 percent since 1995. Its $26 million budget is down from $30 million in 2004. The budget document notes 25 percent reductions in agency travel and employee training funding.
A coalition of 20 unions representing federal employees sent a letter to Congress calling for the Government Accountability Office to study the effect of closing the Boston and Dallas regional offices.
“The FLRA plays a critical role in enforcing federal labor law through its adjudicatory and prosecutorial roles; it also trains union officers and agency officials on their rights and responsibilities under the law,” the letter said. “The proposed reduction of critical frontline staff in the regional offices and the number of those regional offices would critically impede the FLRA’s ability to carry out its mission.”
View the post here.