Union Ratification and the Labor Relations Statute

In the federal sector, union members ratify an agreement with an agency before it becomes final. This article explores the issue of whether the ratification process is a right granted by the labor relations statute or if the current Federal Labor Relations Authority would conclude ratification is only a right granted through the bargaining process.

FedSmith.com author Ralph R. SmithBy Categories Current Events Leave a comment

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With everything that’s going on in the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense, maybe this question is just piling on, but it’s one worth asking.

Does the Union have a “statutory” right to ratification?

Current case law indicates that the union has a statutory right to ratification. Thus, when the union exercises this “right”, union representatives are not authorized to reach final and binding agreements, and any agreements are only tentative until ratified. Yet, it is a violation of the Statute if management does not provide a duly authorized representative to bargain with the union. It seems the Authority has a somewhat one-sided view of the "duly authorized" bargaining representatives and agreement execution provisions of the Statute.

In SSA v. AFGE Council 220, 46 FLRA No. 135; the Authority concluded that the union has a statutory right to seek ratification even in the absence of a bilateral agreement as long as; (1) the employer has notice of the ratification requirement, and (2) there is no waiver by the union.

In SSA the FLRA stated:

Furthering the right of employees to ratify labor agreements, implicitly and logically flows from section 7102 of the Statute where employees have a right to engage in collective bargaining with respect to conditions of employment through representatives chosen by employees under this chapter.

The FLRA also stated:

“Whether a union must provide representatives empowered to negotiate and enter agreements is not an issue since it is within the union’s province to determine whether its delegated representatives need seek ratification.”

The position offered by the FLRA is at best contradictory as it relates to authorized representatives, tentative agreements (the cornerstone of a ratification process), and their position on a union’s statutory right to ratification. On several occasions, the FLRA has recognized contractually, as in Griffis AFB 25 FLRA 579, or statutorily as in SSA, that union ratification of a tentative contract may be a precondition to final and binding agreement.

In Portsmouth NSY v. FEMTC, 44 FLRA 205, 206-08(1992), the Authority added another twist to their logic regarding authorized representatives, tentative agreements, and the statutory rights of the parties. In Portsmouth the Authority affirmed an ALJ decision finding that management did not commit an ULP when they did not execute the terms of a tentative agreement because they had established a past practice that no agreement was final or binding until it was reviewed and approved by its designated officials.

The Authority stated:

An agreement, for the purposes of section 7114(b)(5) of the Statute, is one, which authorized representatives of the parties come to a meeting of the minds on the terms and conditions over which they have been bargaining.

The Authority also stated as it relates to each party’s statutory rights and the past practice:

“The union’s bargaining representative knew or should have known, that any agreement reached at the bargaining table was merely tentative subject to review and approval by both parties. … We further find that this practice constitutes a clear and unmistakable waiver by each party of its rights under section 7114(b)(2) of the Statute to insist that the other party send representatives to the bargaining table who are duly authorized to reach agreement.

The review and approval of tentative agreements as described in Portsmouth is analogous to that of a union member ratification process. The parties reach tentative agreement, subject to approval of the membership. If, as stated in Portsmouth, it is a waiver by each party of its rights, in theory, the parties only have a tentative agreement, in which management could also construct some type of management ratification process. That theoretical process would seem to conflict with the intent of Congress as it relates to the premise of “collective” and “good faith bargaining” between the exclusive bargaining representative of unit employees and the employing agency. As it stands, the only explicit statutory precondition to an agreement is the agency head to review process to ensure agreements conform to law (5 U.S.C. § 7114 (c)).

To add to the contradictory nature of the Authority’s logic on ratification, the FLRA indicated in SSA that it relied upon private sector cases decided by the NLRB to reach its conclusions. While the quotes from the NLRB cases in SSA would lead one to believe the cases supported the Authority’s logic, some of the language not quoted by the Authority in these cases, would lead one to believe that, while the ratification process is an internal union matter, ratification itself is based on agreement of the parties.

The following are passages excerpted from the NLRB cases cited in SSA not quoted by the Authority:

Houchens Market:

“We agree with the decision of the 4th Circuit in NLRB v. Darlington Veneer Co., 4th Cir., 236 F.2d 85, at page 88, wherein the Court stated:

“The purpose of collective bargaining is to fix wages, hour and conditions etc. NLRB v. Highland Park Mfg., Co., 4Cir., 110 F.2d 632, 638. This can be done satisfactorily only if a bargaining agent is selected to represent all employees with full power to speak on their behalf. The purpose of the statute would be largely frustrated if the results of bargaining must be submitted to a vote of the employees, with all the misunderstandings and crosscurrents that would inevitably arise in an election of the sort.

We do not mean to say that ratification and nullification provisions would not be legal and valid if agreed to by the parties, nor that advancing such proposals is of itself an unfair labor practice. We think however, that the insistence upon such provision as a condition of entering into an agreement is so unreasonable when objected to by the other party as to furnish itself a sufficient basis for the finding by the Board of a failure to bargain in good faith.

Darlington Veneer:

As described in SSA, the union’s implied right of ratification has no basis in the plain language of the Statute. Moreover, the private sector case law referenced in SSA, which was based on the NLRB court decisions in Houchens, Darlington Veneer, and Highland Park explicitly speak to a bilateral agreement of the parties for ratification.

Based on the NLRB cases, it is plausible that the union’s “right” of ratification is at best a right granted through the bargaining process, not a statutory one. In our current labor relations environment, I wonder if the Authority would reach the same conclusion if given another shot at the ratification issue.

© 2023 Ralph R. Smith. All rights reserved. This article may not be reproduced without express written consent from Ralph R. Smith.

About the Author

Ralph Smith has several decades of experience working with federal human resources issues. He has written extensively on a full range of human resources topics in books and newsletters and is a co-founder of two companies and several newsletters on federal human resources. Follow Ralph on Twitter: @RalphSmith47

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