Opinion ID: 448995
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the hiring freeze proposal

Text: 15 Proposal 1 would require the Guard to impose a temporary freeze on hiring from outside sources until a RIF is completed. 30 The Authority held Proposal 1 nonnegotiable on the ground that it would interfere with management rights under 5 U.S.C. Sec. 7106, which provides as follows: 16 (a) Subject to subsection (b) of this section, nothing in this chapter shall affect the authority of any management official of any agency(1) to determine the mission, budget, organization, number of employees, and internal security practices of the agency; and 17 (2) in accordance with applicable laws-- 18 (A) to hire, assign, direct, layoff, and retain employees in the agency, or to suspend, remove, reduce in grade or pay, or take other disciplinary action against such employees; 19 (B) to assign work, to make determinations with respect to contracting out, and to determine the personnel by which agency operations shall be conducted; 20 (C) with respect to filling positions, to make selections for appointments from-- 21 (i) among properly ranked and certified candidates for promotion; or 22 (ii) any other appropriate source; and 23 (D) to take whatever actions may be necessary to carry out the agency mission during emergencies. 24 (b) Nothing in this section shall preclude any agency and any labor organization from negotiating-- 25 (1) at the election of the agency, on the numbers, types, and grades of employees or positions assigned to any organizational subdivision, work project, or tour of duty, or on the technology, methods, and means of performing work; 26 (2) procedures which management officials of the agency will observe in exercising any authority under this section; or 27 (3) appropriate arrangements for employees adversely affected by the exercise of any authority under this section by such management officials. 28 In the instant case, the FLRA followed its Alexandria decision in which it held a proposal for a temporary hiring freeze negotiable only at the election of the Agency since it was directly and integrally related to the statutory right of management to determine numbers and types of employees under section 7106(b)(1) of the Statute. 31 In Alexandria, the Authority concluded that such a freeze would preclude the agency from hiring new employees of the requisite types, at the requisite grades, and in the necessary numbers to meet changes in mission requirements. 32 Rejecting the argument that such a freeze was negotiable under subsections (b)(2) and (b)(3) of section 7106, which require negotiation over the procedures management must follow in exercising its authority and over appropriate arrangements for employees adversely affected by the exercise of that authority, the FLRA in Alexandria reasoned that a freeze proposal would prescribe procedures or arrangements only by requiring the agency to bargain on matters which, under the Statute, it has a right to elect not to bargain. 33 29 The Authority's conclusion that section 7106 requires bargaining in these circumstances only at the election of the agency is clearly incorrect. That section reflects the basic principle--carried over from the pre-1978 administrative law governing federal labor relations--that although management has a right to make the substantive decisions with respect to certain subjects, it is nonetheless required to negotiate both over procedures for implementing such decisions and over arrangements for employees adversely affected by such decisions. 34 As our precedents make clear, this obligation to bargain over the impact and implementation of agency decisions extends to proposed procedures or arrangements that would to some extent interfere with the exercise of management rights under section 7106(a). Thus, in Department of Defense, Army-Air Force Exchange Service v. FLRA, 35 we upheld the Authority's view that proposed procedures are negotiable under section 7106(b)(2) even though, if adopted, they would delay management's power to act under section 7106(a), so long as they would not prevent the agency from acting at all. 36 Moreover, under our decision in American Federation of Government Employees, Local 2782 v. FLRA, 37 proposals to make appropriate arrangements for employees adversely affected by a RIF are negotiable under subsection (b)(3) even if they would directly interfere with the exercise of management's authority under subsection (a). 30 The fact that the Authority held in the present case that the Union's proposal would affect the exercise of management rights under subsection (b)(1)--as distinct from subsection (a), the provision at issue in Department of Defense and Local 2782--provides no basis for a different result. First, the language of subsections (b)(2) and (b)(3) expressly requires negotiation over procedures and arrangements in connection with the exercise of any authority under this section. 38 Second, it would be anomalous to construe section 7106 to require bargaining over impact and implementation with respect to the matters contained in subsection (a)--matters whose substances the agency may not negotiate under any circumstances--but not with respect to the subjects listed in subsection (b)(1)--subjects over which the agency is permitted to bargain if it chooses. Therefore, we hold that, under sections 7106(b)(2) and (b)(3), an agency is required to bargain over procedures and arrangements with respect to the exercise of any of the management rights enumerated in section 7106, whether contained in subsection (a) or in subsection (b)(1). 31 Thus, the Authority erred in holding Proposal 1 nonnegotiable simply because the proposal envisions some constraints upon rights generally reserved (in other contexts) to management. 39 Accordingly, we reverse the Authority's ruling that Proposal 1 is nonnegotiable and remand for such further proceedings as may be appropriate.