Opinion ID: 508928
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Impact of Subsequent Legislation

Text: 34 Regardless of what Congress had in mind in 1946 when it enacted the DM & S Statute, the union argues that it would be wholly fanciful to read section 4108 as conflicting with a collective bargaining right that was not available to federal employees until 1978. Brief for Colorado Nurses as Intervenors at 19. 35 The union advances two arguments. First, it contends that the FSLRA's collective bargaining requirement cannot be seen as trenching on the Administrator's authority to determine working conditions because that requirement is substantially different from the mandatory restrictions imposed by civil service laws in 1946. This argument carries little weight in view of our holding that Congress intended to grant the Administrator exclusive authority to determine the working conditions of DM & S employees. It is irrelevant that Congress did not affirmatively intend to foreclose collective bargaining so long as Congress did intend to grant sole authority to the Administrator. Furthermore, the FSLRA's collective bargaining provisions can be just as intrusive as standards imposed by civil service laws. For example, section 7119(c)(5)(B)(iii) of the FSLRA authorizes the Federal Service Impasse Panel to impose a solution on the negotiating parties if they cannot reach an agreement. 36 The union also suggests that the chronology of the statutes is important because the FSLRA, which was enacted in 1978, impliedly overrode section 4108. We disagree. Even if this were the case, the union would still have to overcome the explicit language of section 4119, in which Congress reaffirms the preeminence of the DM & S Statute. As we noted in our discussion of section 4119 in AFGE v. FLRA, 850 F.2d 782 (D.C.Cir. 1988): 37 Title 38 is simply an entirely different personnel system from that embodied in title 5; it has both provisions more beneficial to employees and those that are less advantageous. We see no indication that Congress wished only those provisions more beneficial to employees in title 38 to preempt title 5. 38 At 787. 39 More fundamentally, the union's interpretation is precluded by the basic principle of statutory construction that a statute dealing with a narrow, precise, and specific subject is not submerged by a later enacted statute covering a more generalized spectrum. Radzanower v. Touche Ross & Co., 426 U.S. 148, 153, 96 S.Ct. 1989, 1992, 48 L.Ed.2d 540 (1976); Simpson v. United States, 435 U.S. 6, 15, 98 S.Ct. 909, 914, 55 L.Ed.2d 70 (1978) (Precedence [is given] to the terms of the more specific statute where a general statute and a specific statute speak to the same concern, even if the general provision was enacted later.) (emphasis added); Morton v. Mancari, 417 U.S. 535, 550-51, 94 S.Ct. 2474, 2482-83, 41 L.Ed.2d 290 (1974) (Where there is no clear intention otherwise, a specific statute will not be controlled or nullified by a general one, regardless of a priority of enactment.) (cited cases omitted) (emphasis added). As we have found the DM & S Statute and the FSLRA to be in conflict on the question of mandatory bargaining, the former must prevail because of its specific application to the VA's medical personnel.