Yesterday, I attended a White House meeting with 10 other labor organizations. In addition to PASS, some of the labor organizations at the meeting included the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), AFL-CIO; International Association of Machinists (IAMAW); International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE); Metal Trades Department; National Air Traffic Controllers (NATCA); and the Teamsters. Participants for the Obama administration included Nate Tamarin, associate director, Executive Office of the President; John Berry, director, Office of Personnel Management (OPM); and Jeff Zients, deputy director of management at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

The meeting was called by the Obama administration in order to gain feedback from labor on the administration's draft executive order regarding labor-management partnerships in the federal government. In essence, the administration was asking if labor would support the draft of the executive order that has been circulating for the last month or so. (A copy of the draft executive order is attached and available on the PASS website.)

As many of you will recall, there was an executive order during the Clinton administration that established Partnership Councils throughout the federal government. In addition, the Clinton order directed agencies to negotiate with unions over "permissive" subjects, which are defined in Sec. 7106(b) of the Statute as "the numbers, types, and grades of employees or positions assigned to any organizational subdivision, work project, or tour of duty, or on the technology, methods, and means of performing work." The revocation of this EO was one of the Bush Administration's first official acts.

In an environment where the federal government is under continuous pressure to outsource and reduce its size, these permissive subjects are critical to federal employees. A union's ability to negotiate over these subjects can mean the difference between ill-conceived agency plans to eliminate large portions of the federal workforce in favor of private contractors and sensible ideas for making the government more efficient without compromising the agency's mission.

Although an earlier draft of the Obama order contained language unambiguously directing agencies to bargain over permissive subjects, much like the Clinton order did, the current version does not. Instead, the Obama order tasks a new National Council on Federal Labor Relations ("Council") with "providing recommendations to the President for implementation of several pilot programs within the Executive branch, described in Section 3 of the draft order, for bargaining over subjects set forth in 5 U.S.C. Section 7106(b)(1)." In other words, rather than directing agencies to negotiate over these crucial issues, the order establishes a Council, which would then develop recommendations for conducting pilot programs to "study" the issue. In effect, except for some limited pilot programs that may or may not be developed and implemented before the end of Obama's presidency, the Bush era prohibition on negotiating over permissive subjects would continue under President Obama.

The reason given by administration officials for this fundamental change in the draft order regarding the scope of bargaining is that there was not "consensus" among the people in the administration working on the order to adopt a requirement for bargaining. They said there was not enough data to support such a recommendation to the president; instead, they want to recommend the pilot program as a way to determine if bargaining over permissive subjects can be done effectively and "for the benefit of the people." They were defensive about comparisons to the Bush administration and took the time to specifically point out that Obama did not run on a platform or make any promises that he supported permissive bargaining.

When I had an opportunity to speak on behalf of PASS, I said that while I understood that President Obama made no explicit promises regarding bargaining over permissive subjects, I was very disappointed to find out that, almost a year into the new administration, there was not support for permissive bargaining, promised or not. I informed them that without being directed to bargain over permissive subjects, the FAA would continue to do whatever it wants, and will simply report to the Council what it thinks the Council wants to hear. I explained that as a small union that will not be a member of the Council, there was little, if anything in the draft EO that would benefit PASS and its members.

The meeting was closed by administration officials asking each union to take a week to think it over and then let them know if they can support the order or not. The PASS Executive Board will be discussing the order over the next week and a response will be provided to the Obama administration. However, at this point, unless there is a significant change in the Administration's position on permissive bargaining, it appears that when the FAA starts looking to re-establish a "Partnership Council," PASS will not be in a position to cooperate in such an undertaking.

We will continue to provide updates on the status of "Partnership" and collective bargaining periodically or as circumstances change.

Fraternally,

Tom Brantley
PASS President