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Parties Involved:
American Federation of Government Employees, Local 32
Petitioner
Federal Labor Relations Authority
Respondent
National Federation of Federal Employees
Amicus Curiae for Petitioner
Office of Personnel Management
Intervenor for Respondent

Document Text:

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued January 21, 1997 Decided April 18, 1997

No. 95-1593

AMERICAN FEDERATION OF GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES, LOCAL 32,

PETITIONER

v.

FEDERAL LABOR RELATIONS AUTHORITY,

RESPONDENT

OFFICE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT,

INTERVENOR

On Petition for Review of an Order of the 

Federal Labor Relations Authority

Kevin M. Grile argued the cause for petitioner, with whom 

Mark D. Roth and Charles A. Hobbie were on the briefs.

David M. Smith, Solicitor, Federal Labor Relations Authority, argued the cause for respondent, with whom William 

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R. Tobey, Deputy Solicitor, and James F. Blandford, Attorney, were on the brief.

Mark W. Pennak, Attorney, United States Department of 

Justice, argued the cause for intervenor, with whom Frank 

W. Hunger, Assistant Attorney General, and William Kanter,

Deputy Director, were on the brief.

H. Stephan Gordon was on the brief for amicus curiae

National Federation of Federal Employees.

Before: SILBERMAN, SENTELLE and RANDOLPH, Circuit 

Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge SENTELLE.

SENTELLE, Circuit Judge: This is a petition for review of a 

Federal Labor Relations Authority ("FLRA" or "Authority") 

decision that a bargaining proposal from Local 32 of the 

American Federation of Government Employees ("Union") is 

outside the Office of Personnel Management's ("OPM" or 

"Agency") duty to negotiate. The Authority found the proposal non-negotiable because it directly implicates and purports to regulate the working conditions of supervisors. 

Agreeing with the Authority, we deny the petition.

BACKGROUND

Where a union is the exclusive representative of employees 

of a federal agency, the Federal Service Labor-Management 

Relations Statute ("Statute" or "FSLMRS") imposes upon the 

agency a general obligation to negotiate in good faith over the 

conditions of employment of the represented employees. 5 

U.S.C. §§ 7114, 7117; U.S. Merit Sys. Protection Bd. v. 

FLRA, 913 F.2d 976, 977 (D.C. Cir. 1990). The scope of the 

agency's obligation to bargain, however, is limited. The 

agency need not negotiate, inter alia, over a proposal that 

"seek[s] to regulate the conditions of employment of members 

of other bargaining units and supervisory personnel." United States Dep't of the Navy, Naval Aviation Depot, Cherry 

Point, North Carolina v. FLRA, 952 F.2d 1434, 1443 (D.C. 

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Cir. 1992) [hereinafter Cherry Point]. This case requires us 

to apply the quoted language from Cherry Point.

The Union is the exclusive representative of a unit of 

employees of the OPM working at its central office in Washington, D.C. On May 2, 1995, OPM informed the Union that 

it intended to revise its policies regarding reductions in force 

("RIF"). Among other things, the Agency proposed to modify the "competitive areas" that would be used by the Agency 

in the event of a RIF.

The concept of a "competitive area" is an important one in 

the field of federal labor relations. As we have previously 

explained,

a competitive area is simply a grouping of employees 

within an agency, according to their geographical or 

organizational location, who compete for job retention 

when a particular position is abolished or some other 

adverse action constituting a RIF is imposed. In such 

circumstances, an employee holding the affected position 

may be able to prevail over less senior or less qualified 

employees who hold different positions but are within the 

same competitive area.

American Fed'n of Gov't Employees, Local 32, AFL-CIO v. 

FLRA, 853 F.2d 986, 988 (D.C. Cir. 1988) (footnotes omitted) 

[hereinafter AFGE II]. How an agency's competitive areas 

are defined affects which employees will retain their jobs in 

the event of a RIF.

The definition of the Agency's competitive areas is obviously an issue of great concern to the Union. Given this, the 

Union responded to the Agency's proposed changes by advancing its own proposal. The Union's proposal called for the 

Washington office to be divided into fewer competitive areas 

than did the Agency's proposal. The Union's proposal favored more senior and more qualified employees. The greater the number of other employees within a competitive area 

the more likely it will be that these employees will find 

juniors to displace in the event of a RIF.

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A week after receiving the Union's proposal, the Agency 

asserted that its duty to bargain under the Statute did not 

extend to the Union's competitive bargaining proposal. The 

Union appealed that decision to the Authority. See 5 U.S.C. 

7117(c). The Agency argued to the Authority that the Union's proposal was non-negotiable because, if accepted, it 

would determine the competitive areas for supervisory and 

managerial personnel.

Under OPM regulations, "[a] competitive area must be 

defined solely in terms of an agency's organizational unit(s) 

and geographical location, and it must include all employees 

within the competitive area so defined." 5 C.F.R. 

§ 351.402(b) (emphasis added); see also U.S. Merit Sys. 

Protection Bd., 913 F.2d at 980 (defining "the competitive 

area to include only bargaining unit employees ... is clearly 

prohibited under OPM regulations"). A union, however, has 

no right to negotiate over the working conditions of supervisors. A union has the right to negotiate only for employees 

who are members of its bargaining unit. See 5 U.S.C. 

§ 7114(a)(1). Supervisors may not belong to any bargaining 

unit. 5 U.S.C. § 7112(b)(1). An agency therefore has no 

obligation to negotiate over any proposal that directly implicates the working conditions of supervisors. Allowing the 

Union to force the Agency to negotiate over this proposal 

would violate the basic principle of labor law that a union 

represents employees who are members of its bargaining 

unit, and those employees only. Cherry Point, 952 F.2d at 

1442. The Agency relied on the Authority's opinion in International Fed'n of Prof'l and Technical Eng'rs and U.S. Dep't 

of the Navy Marine Corps Sec. Force Battalion Pac., 47 

F.L.R.A. 1086 (1993) [hereinafter IFPTE]. Because the Union's proposal necessarily defined the competitive area for 

supervisory personnel, it was outside the Agency's duty to 

negotiate.

The Union countered by arguing that its proposal was 

negotiable because "it is not AFGE 32's intention to determine the competitive area for [supervisory] personnel." The 

proposal affected supervisory personnel only because OPM 

regulations required that competitive areas include all emUSCA Case #95-1593 Document #266525 Filed: 04/18/1997 Page 4 of 12
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ployees within the area. The Union relied on the Authority's 

decision in National Weather Service Employees Org. and 

U.S. Dep't of Commerce Nat'l Oceanic and Atmospheric 

Admin., Nat'l Weather Serv., Silver Spring, Maryland, 44 

F.L.R.A. 18 (1992), enforced sub nom. Department of Commerce v. FLRA, 7 F.3d 243 (D.C. Cir. 1993) [hereinafter 

National Weather Service]. In National Weather Service,

the Authority held a competitive area bargaining proposal to 

be negotiable despite the effect it would have on management 

personnel. The Authority focused in that case on the union's 

intent. Because the union did not intend to regulate the 

conditions of employment of management personnel, the proposal was negotiable. 44 F.L.R.A. at 28. The Union argued 

that National Weather Service required the Authority to hold 

that its proposal was negotiable.

The Authority agreed with the Agency. After a careful 

analysis of relevant authority and D.C. Circuit precedent, the 

Authority stated that there was no basis, either in the Statute 

or in precedent, for the "proposition that, in determining 

whether a proposal [is negotiable], it is appropriate to rely on 

what the union seeks to accomplish rather than what the 

proposal would, in fact, accomplish." 51 F.L.R.A. 491, 1995 

WL 649037, at *10 (1995). Rather, the exact opposite was 

true. Negotiability was determined based on a proposal's 

actual, not its intended, effect. The Authority disavowed the 

contrary position it had taken in National Weather Service.

Once this was established, the application to the facts in 

this case was easy. The Union's proposal, if adopted, would 

determine the competitive areas for supervisors. An agency 

has no obligation to negotiate over proposals that directly 

implicate supervisory personnel. See, e.g., Cherry Point, 952 

F.2d at 1442. The Union's proposal was therefore outside the 

duty to bargain.

The Authority recognized that this decision placed the 

Union in a " catch-22' situation." 51 F.L.R.A. 491, 1995 WL 

649037, at *10. OPM regulations require that competitive 

areas be defined to include supervisors, yet agencies have no 

duty to negotiate over proposals that affect supervisors. The 

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Union might thus never be able to negotiate over this important condition of employment. The Authority nevertheless 

dismissed the petition for review. This appeal followed.

ANALYSIS

This is not a new issue for this court. This is at least the 

fourth time that these two parties have clashed over the 

negotiability of union competitive area proposals. In Local 

32, Am. Fed'n of Gov't Employees, AFL-CIO v. FLRA, 774 

F.2d 498 (D.C. Cir. 1985) [hereinafter AFGE I], the Authority

below had held that a union proposal was outside an agency's 

duty to negotiate because it would affect non-bargaining unit 

employees. In a different case presenting similar facts, 

however, the Authority had held that a proposal defining 

competitive areas was within an agency's duty to negotiate. 

This court noted the discrepancy between these holdings and 

remanded the case to the Authority to reconcile the apparent 

inconsistency. Id. at 499-500.

On remand the Authority announced again that the union's 

competitive area proposals did not fall within the Agency's 

duty to negotiate. It arrived at this conclusion by balancing 

"the right of the union to negotiate over the conditions of 

employment of bargaining unit employees and the right of the 

agency to set the conditions of employment of nonbargaining 

unit employees." American Fed'n of Gov't Employees, Local 

32, AFL-CIO and Office of Personnel Management, 22 

F.L.R.A. 478, 482 (1986).

The union contested the Authority's conclusions and its 

analysis in an appeal to this court. We again agreed with the 

union and remanded the case to the Authority. In doing so 

we concluded that the Authority's use of a balancing test was 

inconsistent with the statute. AFGE II, 853 F.2d at 991. We 

reminded the Authority of the analogous relationship between 

the FSLMRS and the National Labor Relations Act and 

urged it to consider using the private sector's "vitally affects" 

test in its further consideration of this question. Id. at 992; 

see Allied Chem. & Alkali Workers, Local Union No. 1 v. 

Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co., 404 U.S. 157, 179 (1971). The 

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1We also denied the petition of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, co-petitioner in the case. 

"vitally affects" test has been used in the private sector to 

expand "the scope of mandatory bargaining subjects to include issues directly relating to non-employees or other conditions [outside the bargaining unit], so long as a sufficient 

nexus with the employees' interests can be shown." Cherry 

Point, 952 F.2d at 1440 (quoting CHARLES J. MORRIS, THE 

DEVELOPING LABOR LAW 765 (2d ed. 1983)) (alteration in 

original).

Accepting our suggestion, the Authority began to use the 

"vitally affects" test to determine the negotiability of union 

proposals. Applying that test to the proposals involved in 

AFGE I and AFGE II, the Authority found that the proposals were negotiable because they "vitally affect[ed]" the working conditions of employees in the bargaining unit. American Fed'n of Gov't Employees, Local 32, AFL-CIO and Office 

of Personnel Management, 33 F.L.R.A. 335, 338-39 (1988). 

The OPM appealed the decision to this court, challenging 

both the result and the Authority's use of the "vitally affects" 

test. We denied its petition.1 We did not, however, consider 

whether the "vitally affects" test had been appropriately 

applied. We held that the law of the case doctrine and 

justiciability concerns barred us from considering the challenge. United States Office of Personnel Management v. 

FLRA, 905 F.2d 430, 433-35 (D.C. Cir. 1990) [hereinafter 

AFGE III].

The Authority therefore went on resolving negotiability 

disputes by asking whether the proposal "vitally affected" the 

working conditions of employees in the relevant bargaining 

unit. See, e.g., American Fed'n of Gov't Employees, Council 

of Marine Corps Locals and Dep't of the Navy, U.S. Marine 

Corps, 35 F.L.R.A. 1023, 1030-33 (1990). The appropriateness of this practice went unreviewed until this court considered the question in Cherry Point.

In Cherry Point, the Authority applied the "vitally affects" 

test to proposals concerning promotion practices and parking 

policy at a military base. The Authority found the proposals 

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to be negotiable and the Navy brought a petition challenging 

the Authority's "adoption, construction and application" of the 

"vitally affects" test. Cherry Point, 952 F.2d at 1436. We 

approved the Authority's decision to adopt the "vitally affects" test, but held that the Authority's construction and 

application of the test were flawed. Id. at 1439. Contrary to 

the Authority's practice, the "vitally affects" test is applicable 

only when the subject of the proposal is outside the scope of 

mandatory bargaining. Id. at 1440.

In addition, and of greater relevance for this case, we also 

held that the vitally affects test is not applicable if a union 

proposal "directly implicate[s]," "purports to regulate," or 

"seek[s] to regulate" the working conditions of supervisory 

personnel or members of other bargaining units. Id. at 1441-

43. Such proposals are always non-negotiable. The present 

case requires us to expound on this aspect of Cherry Point.

In order to determine the negotiability of the union's 

proposal, we must first ascertain whether it "directly implicates," "purports to regulate," or "seeks to regulate" the 

working conditions of supervisors. If it does, the proposal is 

outside the Agency's duty to negotiate.

We note at the outset that the Authority has not been 

consistent in its application of Cherry Point. In National 

Weather Service, the Authority focused on the union's intent 

in determining whether the proposal "purported" to regulate 

the working conditions of supervisory personnel. If the effect 

on supervisors was a result of the operation of a federal 

regulation rather than the result of the union's intent, the 

Agency could not claim that the proposal "purported" to 

regulate the working conditions of supervisors and was for 

that reason outside the duty to negotiate. In IFPTE and in 

its opinion in this case, however, the Authority relied not on 

the union's expressed intent, but rather on the effect that the 

proposal would have on the working conditions of supervisory 

personnel.

We are not suggesting, however, that the Authority has 

been arbitrary or capricious. Rather, as we noted above, the 

Authority expressly rejected its National Weather Service

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reasoning in its decision in this case. See p. 5, supra (citing 

51 F.L.R.A. 491, 1995 WL 649037, at *10 (1995)). The Union 

argues to us now that the Authority's approach in National 

Weather Service is correct. It reads our use of the terms 

"purport" and "seek" in Cherry Point to require the Authority to determine the negotiability of a proposal by looking to 

the intent of the union as it is expressed in the language of 

the proposal itself. In the Union's view, its proposal does not 

say anything about the working conditions of supervisory 

personnel, and therefore cannot be said to "purport" or 

"seek" to regulate their working conditions or "directly implicate" them. The Union contends that its proposal is therefore negotiable so long as it "vitally affects" the working 

conditions of members of its bargaining unit. Due to the 

central importance of the RIF process, the Union maintains 

that its competitive area proposal clearly meets that standard 

and is within the Agency's duty to negotiate.

The Authority disagrees. It rejects as contrary to statute, 

common sense, and Cherry Point the Union's "myopic" focus 

on the language of the proposal. It interprets Cherry Point

to mean that a union proposal that "preclusively determines" 

or "mandate[s]" working conditions for supervisory personnel 

is outside the scope of the agency's duty to negotiate. In this 

case the union proposed a redefinition of OPM's competitive 

areas. OPM regulations require that competitive areas be 

defined so as to include all employees within the area. 5 

C.F.R. § 351.402(b). Supervisors work within the competitive area that the union proposes to define. Therefore, the 

Authority contends that the union's proposal "purports" to 

regulate the working conditions of supervisors and is outside 

the Agency's duty to negotiate.

The Authority is correct. All the Union has to offer in 

support of its position is a strained interpretation of the 

Cherry Point court's use of the word "purports." Its interpretation is easily rejected. Its most obvious flaw is that it is 

completely counter to the approach we took in Cherry Point

itself. In Cherry Point we focused, not on the language that 

the union used in crafting its proposal, but on the effect that 

the union proposal would have if the agency accepted it. We 

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held that the proposals in question in Cherry Point were nonnegotiable. We did not base our holdings on the fact that the 

union proposals, if accepted, would have some effect on the 

working conditions of supervisors or members of other bargaining units. Nearly every bargaining proposal, if accepted, 

will have some effect on non-unit personnel. We found that 

the union's proposals were non-negotiable because, if accepted, they would govern the working conditions of supervisors 

and employees in other bargaining units. This is the distinction that we were drawing through our use of terms such as 

"directly implicate," "seek to regulate," and "purport to regulate."

An analysis of the two parking proposals mentioned in the 

opinion makes this point clear. The first proposal is the one 

the union submitted. The union's proposal called "for the 

establishment of an "open' parking policy for all employees 

and supervisory personnel working at the Cherry Point installation." Cherry Point, 952 F.2d at 1436. We held that 

this proposal was outside the agency's duty to negotiate. The 

second parking proposal, a hypothetical mentioned at oral 

argument and discussed in the opinion, called for "all parking 

at Cherry Point [to] be reserved for employees in the Local 

2297 unit." Id. at 1441. We said that this proposal was 

negotiable.

The significant difference between these proposals is not 

that the first mentions the interests of the supervisors and 

the second does not or that the first impacts non-unit personnel and the second does not. The crucial difference is that 

the first would have bound the agency vis-a-vis the parking 

rights of members of other bargaining units and supervisors, 

and the second would not have. Had the agency accepted the 

second proposal, it would have had severely limited options 

regarding the parking privileges of these other employees 

and supervisors (and that is why the proposal would likely 

have been unreasonable, despite being negotiable) but it still 

could have worked with these other groups to arrive at some 

other arrangement. The first proposal, by contrast, would 

have defined parking privileges not just for members of the 

union's bargaining unit, but also for members of other barUSCA Case #95-1593 Document #266525 Filed: 04/18/1997 Page 10 of 12
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gaining units and supervisory personnel. Because this would 

be counter to basic principles of labor law, we held that the 

union's parking proposal was non-negotiable.

Applying this principle to the facts of this case, it is clear 

that the Union's competitive area proposal is not within the 

agency's duty to negotiate. 5 C.F.R. § 351.402(b) and U.S. 

Merit Sys. Protection Bd. require that a competitive area be 

defined to include all workers in an area. The Union's 

proposal, if implemented, would therefore govern the competitive area not only for members of the Union's bargaining 

unit, but also for supervisory personnel. As the Cherry Point

court made clear, such a proposal is outside an agency's duty 

to negotiate. The Authority's decision was therefore correct.

The Union emphasizes repeatedly that it does not intend to 

define the competitive area for supervisors. Its proposal has 

this effect only because of the necessary operation of 5 C.F.R. 

§ 351.402(b). The Authority noted that this placed the Union 

in a difficult position, where it might never be able to force 

the Agency to bargain bilaterally over the definition of competitive areas. 51 F.L.R.A. 491, 1995 WL 649037, at *10.

We acknowledge that this ruling puts the Union in a 

difficult position. Difficult though that position may be, it 

seems to be contemplated by the FSLMRS. Under 

§ 7117(a)(1) the duty to bargain in good faith does not 

extend to proposals that are inconsistent with federal law or 

government-wide regulations. This statutory provision appears to give the government the ability to make certain 

categories of proposals non-negotiable by adopting government-wide regulations covering those subjects. This is essentially what the government did here. The FSLMRS gives 

the Union the right to negotiate only for employees who are 

members of its bargaining unit. 5 U.S.C. § 7114(a)(1). Supervisors may not belong to any bargaining unit. See 5 

U.S.C. § 7112(b)(1). Because of 5 C.F.R. § 351.402(b), however, the Union's proposal will determine competitive areas 

for supervisors as well as for members of the Union's bargaining unit. The Union's proposal therefore exceeds the 

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2 Note that the Union cannot cure its problem by altering the 

proposal so that it covers only members of its bargaining unit. 

Such a proposal would be directly inconsistent with a governmentwide regulation, 5 C.F.R. § 351.402(b), and would for that reason be 

outside the Agency's duty to negotiate. 5 U.S.C. § 7117(a)(1). 

negotiating authority that it is given under the FSLMRS.2It 

is inconsistent with federal law and outside the Agency's duty 

to negotiate. See AFGE III, 905 F.2d at 436 (Silberman, J., 

concurring).

CONCLUSION

If adopted, the Union's proposal would govern the working 

conditions of supervisors at the OPM. It is therefore outside 

the Agency's duty to negotiate. We deny the Union's petition 

for review.

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