Or they may volunteer for special pay status, entitling them to leave with pay from their federal civilian technician jobs for up to 44 days, but no military pay. But the status of the technicians at the time of the negotiation cannot matter. What does matter is the substance of the proposal to be negotiated. We agree that the proposal does this, but it also does considerably more than the union cares to admit. The FLRA so found and its interpretation deserves judicial respect.
Wages are a quintessential term of employment.
See Fort Stewart Schs. The proposal also affects the manner in which the Air National Guard recalls a technician to active duty. The proposal threatens to interfere with the National Guard's discretion to call technicians into action as it sees fit and on such terms as it desires. The statute would quite clearly ban bargaining on the latter. We agree with the FLRA that the statute also bans bargaining on the proposal we have before us.