Opinion ID: 4540022
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the statute and authority precedent

Text: We begin with the Statute itself. “Conditions,” on its own, is subject to “two common meanings”—(1) “matters ‘established or agreed upon as a requisite to the doing . . . of something else’”; or (2) “‘attendant circumstances,’ or an ‘existing state of affairs.’” Fort Stewart, 495 U.S. at 645 (citation omitted). Thus, “conditions,” as used in the statutory phrases “conditions of employment” and “working conditions,” is ambiguous. See id. But unlike the phrase 8 “working conditions,” which is undefined by the Statute, “conditions of employment” is expressly defined in § 7103(a)(14) as “personnel policies, practices, and matters, whether established by rule or otherwise, affecting working conditions.” Therefore, no matter what ambiguity exists in “conditions” generally, the Statute’s definition of “conditions of employment” requires an agency to bargain over changes in personnel policies, practices and matters that affect working conditions. For that reason, the Authority’s claim in El Paso I that “the issuance of a memorandum which affects working conditions, but not conditions of employment, does not constitute a change over which CBP must bargain,” El Paso I, 70 FLRA at 501, would appear, at first blush, to contradict the Statute. If the relevant inquiry under § 7103(a)(14) is whether an agency’s action constitutes a change in “personnel policies, practices, and matters . . . affecting working conditions,” it would seem that a memo that affects working conditions is, by definition, a condition of employment over which the agency must bargain. The only way this would not be accurate is if the memo is not a personnel policy, practice or matter. The Authority understands this point on appeal. See Resp. Br. at 21 (“The more natural reading of term ‘conditions of employment’ is that an agency is not obligated to bargain over ‘working conditions’ as such, but only a more limited subset of ‘personnel policies, practices, and matters . . . that ‘affect[] working conditions’” (alteration in original) (quoting § 7103(a)(14)). But that understanding and explanation are wholly lacking in El Paso I, where it counts. See Temple Univ. Hosp., Inc. v. NLRB, 929 F.3d 729, 734 (D.C. Cir. 2019) (“[C]ourts may not accept appellate counsel’s post hoc rationalization for agency action; Chenery requires that an agency’s discretionary order be upheld, if at all, on the same basis articulated in the order by the agency itself.” (quoting 9 Erie Brush & Mfg. Corp. v. NLRB, 700 F.3d 17, 23 (D.C. Cir. 2012)) (citing SEC v. Chenery Corp., 332 U.S. 194, 196 (1947))). Instead, in El Paso I, the Authority took “the opportunity” to alter its precedent “to clarify that there is a distinction between” conditions of employment and working conditions but failed to explain its departure from precedent. El Paso I, 70 F.L.R.A. at 501, 503. Before El Paso I, the Authority defined “working conditions” in § 7103(a)(14) broadly, maintaining that “there is no substantive difference between [the terms] ‘conditions of employment’ and ‘working conditions’ as those terms are practically applied.” U.S. Dep’t of the Air Force 355th MSG/CC Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, 64 F.L.R.A. 85, 90 (2009); see also U.S. Dep’t of Homeland Sec. v. FLRA, 647 F.3d 359, 365 (D.C. Cir. 2011) (“[B]oth courts and the Authority have accorded [working conditions] a broad interpretation that encapsulates a wide range of subjects that is effectively synonymous with conditions of employment.” (second alteration in original) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted)). 2 In El Paso I, the Authority concluded that its earlier view was “erroneous” because it violated the “canon of statutory interpretation that ‘Congress acts intentionally’ when it ‘inclu[des] or exclu[des]’ 2 We have upheld the Authority’s earlier interpretation of conditions of employment and working conditions as reasonable. See U.S. Dep’t of Homeland Sec., 647 F.3d at 364–65. But that holding does not necessarily prevent the Authority from changing its interpretation so long as the change is within the Authority’s discretion and is reasonably explained. See Brand X, 545 U.S. at 982 (“A court’s prior judicial construction of a statute trumps an agency construction otherwise entitled to Chevron deference only if the prior court decision holds that its construction follows from the unambiguous terms of the statute and thus leaves no room for agency discretion.”); FedEx Home Delivery, 849 F.3d at 1127. 10 particular words in a statute” and amounted to “circular reasoning.” 70 F.L.R.A. at 503 (alterations in original). The Authority then concluded that “[i]t is . . . imperative that we respect that distinction and define the differences for the labormanagement relationships community.” Id. Beyond stating that “[t]he terms are related, but they are not synonymous,” id., however, the Authority fails to explain the differences between the terms or how the alleged differences matter under the language of § 7103(a)(14). First, the Authority has misread United States Supreme Court precedent. It quotes the High Court’s Fort Stewart decision for the proposition that “while the term ‘conditions of employment’ is susceptible to multiple interpretations, the term ‘working conditions,’ as used in § 7103(a)(14), ‘more naturally refers . . . only to the “circumstances” or “state of affairs” attendant to one’s performance of a job.’” Id. (quoting Fort Stewart, 495 U.S. at 645). But the Supreme Court, in deciding whether an employer was required to bargain over wages and benefits in Fort Stewart, explained that “working conditions” in § 7103(a)(14) “more naturally refers, in isolation, only to the ‘circumstances’ or ‘state of affairs’ attendant” to one’s job performance. 495 U.S. at 645 (emphasis added) (citation omitted). But the Court clarified that “here it is not in isolation, but forms part of a paragraph whose structure, as a whole, lends support to the Authority’s broader reading.” Id. at 646. By omitting the phrase “in isolation” and the High Court’s subsequent clarification, the Authority misreads Fort Stewart to imply that “working conditions” has a free-standing definition when, in fact, the point being made in Fort Stewart is the opposite. Second, the Authority fails to explain how its definition of “working conditions” differs from the statutory definition of “conditions of employment.” It concludes the terms are not 11 synonymous but then defines working conditions based on a misreading of Fort Stewart. It goes no further, leaving a gap in its reasoning. It does not explain how to tell the difference between what constitutes a condition of employment versus a working condition. More importantly, it does not explain how its revised interpretation substantively changes what aspects of employment are bargainable under § 7103(a)(14). On appeal, the Authority argues that it did explain the difference by relying on concurrences of former FLRA Chairman Dale Cabaniss in earlier cases. But the Authority cites those concurrences only to support the proposition that conditions of employment and working conditions are not synonymous, see 70 F.L.R.A. at 503 n.33; it does not elaborate on Cabaniss’s view of the distinction between the terms. And if we look to Cabaniss’s explanation of how conditions of employment and working conditions are different, that explanation does not help the Authority on the facts of this case. In the cited concurrences, Cabaniss articulated the distinction between the two terms: As reflected in our Statute, “conditions of employment” is a term of art expressly defined at § 7103(a)(14) that means “personnel policies, practices, and matters, whether established by rule, regulation, or otherwise, affecting working conditions.” Clearly, “conditions of employment” and “working conditions” are related, but they are not the same thing. For example, “working conditions” would be an employee’s work starting and stopping times, or whether the employee has the ability to take home a government owned vehicle (GOV): “conditions of employment” would be the “rules, regulations, or otherwise” that define the 12 hours of work for the bargaining unit, or determine whether or what employees have the right to take that GOV home. U.S. Dep’t of Veterans Affairs Med. Ctr. Sheridan, Wyo., 59 F.L.R.A. 93, 95 (2003) (Cabaniss, Chairman, concurring). 3 Under this reasoning, a memo setting forth procedures for where and how agents conduct inspections would seem to meet Cabaniss’s definition of conditions of employment. In other words, had the Authority in El Paso I used Cabaniss’s formulation to explain the distinction between working conditions and conditions of employment under the Statute, it still would not provide sufficient support for the Authority’s conclusion—without further explanation—that the CBP was not required to bargain over the Memo. In sum, the Authority departed from precedent based on a misreading of case law and without explaining the departure. Such a change is not “sensibly explained.” FedEx Home Delivery, 849 F.3d at 1127.