REPRESENTATION
In Phoenix Area Indian Health Service, Sacaton Service Unit, Hu Hu Kam Memorial Hospital, Sacaton, Arizona and Southwest Native American Health Care Employees, Local 1386, Liuna, AFL-CIO, 53 FLRA No. 101, the Authority held that employees detailed from their Agency to a Tribal Corporation under the Intergovernmental Personnel Act, 5 U.S.C. § 3373, remained "employed in an agency" pursuant to section 7103(a)(2) of the Statute. Specifically, the Authority determined that the Tribal Corporation was not an "executive agency" within the meaning of 5 U.S.C. § 105 and that the detailed employees were employees of the Agency from which they were detailed, in this case, the Indian Health Service. With respect to the employees’ bargaining rights under the Statute, the Authority stated that the Agency was obligated to bargain with the Union concerning conditions of employment over which it retained control. In addition, the Authority found that the employees’ bargaining unit remained an "appropriate unit" because there was a community of interest among the employees in the unit, the unit promoted effective dealings with the Agency, and the unit promoted efficient operations within the Agency. The Authority dismissed the petition to clarify the unit and directed the Regional Director to amend the certification of the unit consistent with its decision. Subsequently, a motion for reconsideration was submitted, which was denied.
In U.S. Department of the Air Force, Air Force Materiel Command, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, 55 FLRA No. 58 (1999), the Authority granted the Union's petition for review of a Regional Director's (RD) decision dismissing the Union's petition for consolidation, and reversed that decision. The Authority determined that the decision below had not properly evaluated the community of interest criteria under section 7112(a). The Authority found that the individual bargaining units that the Union intended to consolidate with a large pre-existing consolidated unit had a sufficient degree of commonality and integration of mission and function to find that the proposed consolidated unit was appropriate. Additionally, the Authority found that employees in the proposed unit worked under sufficiently similar personnel and labor relations policies to support consolidation.
The Authority also found that the RD had erred by determining that the proposed unit was not appropriate because it would not consolidate all of the petitioner's units. In this connection, the Authority determined that a purpose of section 7112(d) of the Statute is to facilitate the consolidation of small units into comprehensive units, and that because the proposed unit would reduce unit fragmentation, consolidation would promote effective dealings and efficient agency operations even though all possible units were not included. Accordingly, the Authority reversed the RD's decision and granted the Union's petition to consolidate