Source: https://openjurist.org/526/us/86/federal-employees-v-department-of-interior
Timestamp: 2019-06-20 22:40:03
Document Index: 97769488

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 7101', '§ 7106', '§7106', '§7106', '§ 706', '§7105', '§7105', '§7117', '§ 7106', '§7114', '§7114', '§7114', '§7103', '§7103', '§ 158', '§ 7106', '§ 158', '§ 7114', '§ 158', '§ 7131', '§7101', '§7101', '§ 7103']

526 U.S. 86 - Federal Employees v. Department of Interior
526 US 86 Federal Employees v. Department of Interior
526 U.S. 86
119 S.Ct. 1003
143 L.Ed.2d 171
Other policy concerns, however, argue for a different reading of the Statute. Without midterm bargaining, for example, will it prove possible to find a collective solution to a workplace problem, say a health or safety hazard, that first appeared midterm? The Statute's emphasis upon collective bargaining as "contribut[ing] to the effective conduct of public business," 5 U.S.C. § 7101(a)(1)(B), suggests that it would favor joint, not unilateral, solutions to such midterm problems.
The Agency also points to a Senate Report in support of its interpretation of the Statute. That Report speaks of the parties' "mutual duty to bargain" with respect to (1) "changes in established personnel policies proposed by management," and (2) "negotiable proposals initiated by either the agency or [the union] . . . in the context of negotiations leading to a basic collective bargaining agreement." S. Rep. No. 95-969, p. 104 (1978) (emphasis added). This Report, however, concerns a bill that contains language similar to the language before us but was not enacted into law. According to the D. C. Circuit, at least, any distinction between basic and midterm bargaining that is indicated by this passage "did not survive the rejection by Congress of the Senate's restrictive view of the rights of labor and the importance of collective bargaining." NTEU, 810 F.2d, at 298. In any event, the Report's list of possible occasions for collective bargaining does not purport to be an exclusive list; it does not say tha t the Statute was understood to exclude midterm bargaining; and any such implication is simply too distant to control our reading of the Statute.
Fourth, the Agency and the Fourth Circuit contend that the "management rights" provision of the Statute, 5 U.S.C. § 7106 does authorize limited midterm bargaining in respect to certain matters (not here at issue), and that by negative implication it denies permission to bargain midterm in respect to any others. See, e.g., SSA, supra, at 1284 ("The inclusion of a specific duty of midterm effects bargaining . . . suggests the inadvisability of reading a more general duty into the statute"). Our examination of that provision, however, finds little support for such a strong negative implication. Subsection (a) of the management rights provision withdraws from collective bargaining certain subjects that it reserves exclusively for decision by management. It specifies, for example, that federal agency "management official[s]" will retain their authority to hire, fire, promote, and assign work, and also to determine the agency's "mission, budget, organization, number of employees, and internal security prac tices." §7106(a).
The two subsections of the management rights provision, taken together, do not help the Agency. While the provision contemplates that bargaining over the impact and implementation of management changes may take place during the term of the basic labor contract, subsection (b) need not be read to actually impose a duty to bargain midterm. The italicized clause, "[n]othing in this section shall preclude," indicates only that the delegation of certain rights to management (e.g., promotions) shall not preclude negotiations about certain related matters (e.g., promotion procedures). By its terms, then, subsection (b) does nothing more than create an exception to subsection (a), preserving the duty to bargain with respect to certain matters otherwise committed to the discretion of management. Because §7106(b) chiefly addresses the subject matter of bargaining and not the timing, one could reasonably conclude that while that subsection contemplates midterm bargaining in the circumstances there specified, th e duty to bargain midterm finds its source elsewhere in the Statute. Hence, the management rights provision seems to hurt, as much as to help, the Agency's basic argument.
The statutory ambiguity is perfectly consistent, however, with the conclusion that Congress delegated to the Authority the power to determine-within appropriate legal bounds, see, e.g., 5 U.S.C. § 706 (Administrative Procedure Act); Chevron U.S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837 (1984)-whether, when, where, and what sort of midterm bargaining is required. The Statute's delegation of rulemaking, adjudicatory, and policymaking powers to the Authority supports this conclusion. See 5 U.S. C. §7105(a)(1) ("Authority shall provide leadership in establishing policies and guidance"); §7105(a)(2)(E) (Authority "resolves issues relating to the duty to bargain in good faith"); §7117(c) (Authority resolves disputes about whether the duty to bargain in good faith extends to a particular matter); accord American Federation of Govt. Employees, Local 2986, AFL-CIO v. FLRA, 775 F.2d 1022, 1027 (CA9 1985); American Federation of Govt. Employees, AFL-CIO, Council of Soc. Sec . Dist. Office Locals, San Francisco Region v. FLRA, 716 F.2d 47, 50 (CADC 1983). This conclusion is also supported by precedent recognizing the similarity of the Authority's public-sector and the National Labor Relations Board's private-sector roles. As we have recognized, the Authority's function is "to develop specialized expertise in its field of labor relations and to use that expertise to give content to the principles and goals set forth in the Act," and it "is entitled to considerable deference when it exercises its 'special function of applying the general provisions of the Act to the complexities' of federal labor relations." Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms v. FLRA, 464 U.S. 89, 97 (1983) (quoting NLRB v. Erie Resistor Corp., 373 U.S. 221, 236 (1963)).
Here, the language of the Federal Labor Statute, as well as the specific and broader contexts in which that language is used, demonstrates that the Statute is unambiguous. The Federal Labor Statute specifies a few instances where midterm bargaining is required, see 5 U.S.C. § 7106(b), but it contains no provision that expressly or implicitly imposes a general duty on agencies to bargain during the term of a collective bargaining agreement. Rather, Congress defined the general duty to bargain to include only a duty to "meet and negotiate in good faith for the purposes of arriving at a collective bargaining agreement," §7114(a)(4) (emphasis supplied), and obligated agencies to negotiate "with a sincere resolve to reach a collective bargaining agreement," §7114(b)(1) (emphasis supplied); see also, §7114(b)(5) (requiring parties "to take such steps as are necessary to implement such agreement"). The term "arrive" is commonly understood to mean "to reach a destination" or "to gain or achieve an end." See Webster's Third New International Dictionary 121 (1976). Thus, by its terms, the Federal Labor Statute requires an agency to "meet and negotiate in good faith" with unions only "for the purposes of" achieving an end: a comprehensive collective bargaining agreement. See also §7103(a)(8) (defining "collective bargaining agreement" as "an agreement" reached through collective bargaining); §7103(a)(12) (defining "collective bargaining," in part, as "to reach [an] agreement with respect to the conditions of employment").
The Court suggests that, because a midterm bargaining agreement is an end agreement of negotiation, the duty to bargain may encompass midterm agreements as well. See ante, at 7. As the word "midterm" suggests, however, such agreements are only a "midpoint" in the term of the underlying collective bargaining agreement. Because such agreements do not stand alone but relate back to the primary collective bargaining agreement, a midterm agreement is most appropriately regarded as a modification of, or a supplement to, the primary agreement reached pursuant to the Federal Labor Statute. See, e.g., 29 U.S.C. § 158(d) (describing midterm bargaining agreements in private sector as "modification[s]" to the primary agreement). The Federal Labor Statute expresses no general duty on the part of agencies to negotiate modifications or supplements to an existing collective bargaining agreement. With respect to modifications and supplements, the Statute requires only that agencies bargain over a few specified topics. See 5 U.S.C. § 7106(b).
That the Federal Labor Statute contemplates a single end agreement, and not supplementary agreements or modifications, is also demonstrated by a comparison of it to the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), the Statute's private-sector counterpart. The duty to bargain, as defined in the NLRA, includes "the negotiation of an agreement, or any question arising thereunder." 29 U.S.C. § 158(d) (emphasis supplied). This broad definition of the duty, which clearly contemplates negotiation of midterm agreements, stands in stark contrast to the duty defined in the Federal Labor Statute, to "arriv[e] at a collective bargaining agreement." 5 U.S.C. § 7114(a)(4). The NLRA also contains a proviso limiting this broad duty to negotiate when there is "in effect a collective-bargaining contract covering employees in an industry" and a party desires to "modify" that contract. 29 U.S.C. § 158(d). For example, there is no duty to engage in midterm bargaining over matters already "contained in" the existing coll ective bargaining agreement. Ibid. As noted above, the Federal Labor Statute lacks any comparable language. Because, at the time it drafted the Statute, Congress knew that the NLRA defined a duty to bargain midterm, see NLRB v. Jacobs Mfg. Co., 196 F.2d 680, 684 (CA2 1952), this omission indicates that Congress did not intend to include a similar duty in the Federal Labor Statute.
A comparison of the two statutes explains why a duty to bargain midterm was included in the NLRA but omitted from the Federal Labor Statute. Under the Statute, but not the NLRA, the Government must subsidize union negotiators. See 5 U.S.C. § 7131(a). Consequently, there is little incentive for union negotiators to streamline their bargaining positions or to avoid extended midterm bargaining. Given this incentive structure, it is difficult to imagine that Congress would obligate Government agencies to bargain midterm, for such an obligation would likely cause perpetual collective bargaining. Continuous bargaining, however, is contrary to the goal of the FLRA: to promote "effective and efficient" Government, not Government stymied by perpetual bargaining. §7101(b). Indeed, it was this realization that initially motivated the FLRA to reject the contention that the Federal Labor Statute contained a duty to bargain midterm. See Internal Revenue Service, 17 F. L. R. A. 731, 736-737 (1985) (observing th at midterm bargaining would cause continuous bargaining on an issue-by-issue basis).
A duty to bargain midterm was also excluded from the Statute because, in the context of the no-strike regime of federal labor relations, it would leave the agency-employer at an unfair disadvantage. In the NLRA context, the union that wants to obtain a midterm modification or supplement from an employer who is dead set against it must pay the price of a strike that is costly to it and its members. In the context of the Federal Labor Statute, the union that wants to obtain a midterm modification or supplement need only bargain to an impasse and then hope that the Federal Service Impasses Panel will give it all (or at least some) of what it has requested. Demanding unreciprocated additional benefits is cost-free. Thus, a midterm bargaining requirement might motivate a union to "hold [a] matter off until the term agreement is done[,]? initiate the proposal as part of a single-issue negotiation," and, if an impasse results, force the agency to arbitrate. Ferris, Union-Initiated Mid-Term Bargaining: A Catalyst in Reshaping Conflict Patterns, 5 Negotiation J. 407, 411-412 (Oct. 1989). Again, it is obvious that this incentive structure does not promote "effective and efficient" government. §7101(b). Given the language and structure of the Federal Labor Statute, the context in which this language is used and the differences between the Statute and the NLRA, I would hold that the Federal Labor Statute plainly, and justifiably, does not impose a general duty to bargain midterm.
There is, moreover, no statutory source for a duty to bargain over contractual requirements to bargain midterm. Section 7117(a)(1) directs an agency to bargain over "matters which are the subject of any rule or regulation only if the rule or regulation is not a Government-wide rule or regulation" but only "to the extent not inconsistent with any Federal law." The FLRA has interpreted this section to impose a duty on agencies to bargain over only proposals relating to conditions of employment. See Brief for Petitioner FLRA in No. 97-1243, p. 37. It is not apparent, however, how bargaining over a contractual requirement to bargain midterm is a "matte[r ] . . . affecting working conditions." See 5 U.S.C. § 7103(a)(14) (defining "conditions of employment"). More important, because Congress, through the Federal Labor Statute, chose not to require agencies to bargain midterm, it is "inconsistent with . . . Federal law" for the FLRA to require bargaining over a contractual requirement to bargain midterm. As I read the Statute, Congress has clearly rejected such a requirement.