FLRA

The Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs held hearings on the pending confirmations of all three FLRA nominees on September 25. The author suggests that Federal LR practitioners watch the session which is about 1 ½ hours in length to get an appreciation of how the process works and how almost no discussion of substance took place.

The Obama White House announced the nomination of Patrick Pizzella as an FLRA Member. The author asks if this will smooth the way for the confirmation of Carol Waller Pope whose nomination has been in limbo for almost a year.

FLRA is not deciding any cases as they are missing two members. If the former Chair is reconfirmed, we can expect more union proposals to be offered and ordered negotiable as “appropriate arrangements” for violating a management statutory right. The Author recently covered this topic at the Society of Federal Labor and Employee Relations Professionals’ annual conference. This article offers the meat of that presentation and suggestions for dealing with FLRA on this issue.

Have you ever listened to someone give a presentation or state a particular view and leave out a critical piece of information? The Author suggests that perhaps FLRA’s General Counsel’s bias was showing in a recent presentation on Furloughs and Agencies need to take it with a big block of salt.