| Comment Number: | OL-10503365 |
| Received: | 3/5/2005 8:58:21 AM |
| Subject: | Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, Request for Comment |
| Title: | National Security Personnel System |
| CFR Citation: | 5 CFR Chapter XCIX and Part 9901 |
| No Attachments |
Comments:
The proposal would establish a new National Security Labor Relations Board (NSLRB) which would take over the functions now performed by FLRA. The only task left to FLRA would be holding representation elections. The NSLRB would decide all unfair labor practice issues and would rule on all appeals from arbitration decisions (except decisions involving adverse actions). The time for filing a ULP charge, like the time for enforcing every other right in this system, is shortened, from 6 months to 90 days. The proposed regulations give not a hint of how unfair labor practice charges will be processed. Will there be an investigation by professional employees of the NSLRB, as is now the case with FLRA, or will unions and employees file and prosecute charges on their own? Will the NSLRB hold evidentiary hearings on ULP’s or decide them on a written record? Until now, appeals from arbitration awards have been limited to narrow grounds. Those narrow grounds would continue to apply to unions, but not to DOD. The proposed regulations say that a legitimate basis for an exception to an arbitrator’s award is “the arbitrator’s failure to properly consider the Department’s national security mission.” What in the world does this mean? We suppose it means the NSLRB can overturn any arbitrator’s award it doesn’t like.The management rights portion of the proposed regulations is breathtaking in its repudiation of collective bargaining. Under the proposal, management would not only retain the exclusive rights it now enjoys to make decisions without bargaining but it would not be required to negotiate even over the “impact and implementation” of most of its decisions. Put more bluntly, the agency could simply implement a decision, with no advance notice to the union and no opportunity for negotiations of any kind. The proposed regulations contain a number of provisions about national-level bargaining. They state that there will be no duty to bargain over national level issuances, such as DOD regulations or Air Force regulations. They state that DOD will decide, in its sole discretion, when to bargain over anything at a level higher than the level of exclusive recognition. Bargaining impasses will no longer be resolved by the Federal Service Impasses Panel. Instead, the NSLRB will resolve them.To add insult to injury, the proposed regulations also provide that no collective bargaining agreement may be subject to a ratification vote before going into effect. This, despite proposed regulations that give DOD the power to veto an agreement within 30 days, that say that even if DOD doesn’t veto an agreement in 30 days it can do so later and that say that “any authorized official” can determine at any time to void any part of an agreement that conflicts with agency regulations. Whether a union requires ratification of a labor contract and the procedures for ratification are the internal business of the union. Unions operate on a principle that may seem foreign to DOD, which is called democracy. Ratification votes have been a feature of collective bargaining for generations. It is impossible to believe that Congress wanted to preserve collective bargaining and at the same time permit the abolishment of ratification votes. The proposed regulations take dead aim at two rights federal agencies have long resented- formal discussions and “Weingarten” meetings. A union would be entitled to attend a formal discussion only where a new personnel policy or working condition is being announced. The regulations would exclude formal meetings about EEO complaints from the coverage of formal discussions. As far as “Weingarten” meetings are concerned, the new regulations would overrule the Supreme Court’s decision that independent agencies acting on behalf of management, like the IG, must allow union representation. Perhaps the most disturbing part of DOD’s explanation of its regulations appears here.