Opinion ID: 410167
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Factual Background of the Litigation

Text: 11 Pursuant to the latter directive, the Bureau of Public Debt informed petitioner in February of 1979 that it planned to institute new standards of performance for the Bureau's accounts maintenance clerks. 28 Petitioner requested negotiations over the substance, impact and implementation of changes. 29 The Bureau took the position that it would negotiate the impact and implementation of the proposals, but not the substance of any standard. 30 12 Ultimately, petitioner submitted the following proposal: 13 Accounts Maintenance Clerks (GS 5203/5) must maintain the following minimum rates: 14 1. To retain his/her position, incumbent must process 9.0 batches per hour. 31 15 As part of the Bureau's performance-appraisal system, this proposal would have identified batch-processing as a critical element of an accounts maintenance clerk's position, and would have fixed nine batches per hour as the minimum performance acceptable for those in that position. 32 The Bureau felt that this proposal usurped nonnegotiable prerogatives of management, and refused to bargain; 33 and, as was its statutory right, 34 petitioner filed a negotiability appeal with the Authority. 35 The appeal was consolidated with sixteen others for purposes of oral argument on the question whether and to what extent performance-appraisal systems, and performance standards they include, are bargainable under the Act. 36 16 In its decision in the instant case, the Authority concluded that establishment of performance standards and identification of critical job elements are within the scope of the power reserved exclusively to management by Section 7106(a) to direct employees and assign work. 37 The Authority further held that petitioner's proposal directly interfered with those functions, and therefore was not a proper subject of negotiation because inconsistent with federal law. 38 It is this determination that petitioner now challenges. The principal issue presented for resolution, then, is whether management's statutorily-reserved right to direct employees and assign work properly encompasses formulation of performance standards and ascertainment of critical job elements in discharge of an agency's responsibility for development of an objective performance appraisal system. 17 In support of its decision, the Authority contends that its interpretation of the management-rights section, and the corresponding interpretation of agencies' duty to bargain, further the congressional intent manifest in the Act and its legislative history to provide federal agencies with the authority and flexibility essential to accomplishment of their respective missions. 39 The Authority asserts, as it did in the decision under review, 40 that implementation of petitioner's proposal would encumber exercise of an agency's statutory prerogative to direct employees and assign work. 41 18 Petitioner argues strenuously that the obligation to bargain in good faith which the Act imposes upon federal employers 42 is to be broadly construed, and reciprocally that exceptions to that obligation are to be read narrowly. 43 Thus, petitioner urges that the management-rights exemption from the employer's duty to bargain cannot be said to encompass the development of performance-appraisal systems. 44 Petitioner further asserts that relevant Authority precedents 45 establish that before a proposal may properly be termed nonnegotiable, it must relate directly and integrally to a reserved management right, and directly impinge upon that right. 46 Petitioner vigorously contests the Authority's view that performance standards for critical job elements are determinative of the quantity, quality or timeliness of any given employee's work. 47 That conclusion, petitioner asserts, is not supported by either evidence or logic; such standards, by petitioner's lights, have no effect until an evaluation is made after an employee has completed the work assigned, and thus cannot interfere with an exercise of reserved management authority. 48 Petitioner therefore says that the required relationship and impact are absent here. 49