WASHINGTON, DC (Bloomberg Law) — The US Labor Department is pressing arguments that its field staff union doesn’t have the right to bargain over return to office policy, potentially creating a path to bar other federal employees from negotiating attendance requirements at their agencies.
After months of bargaining over the number of days DOL field employees have to report in-person, the agency in August took the stance that in-office attendance was not a mandatory subject of bargaining, tossing the case out of the authority of the Federal Service Impasses Panel. That small federal agency addresses conflicts between federal agencies and their staff unions when they’re
unable to resolve bargaining issues through mediation.
Now, the DOL is moving forward with implementing its five-day in-office policy starting in December while another agency, the Federal Labor Relations Authority, is set to decide whether attendance is a negotiable issue. The dispute comes as the federal government has faced intensifying pressure and scrutiny over its in-office policies by both Republicans and President Joe Biden.
An FLRA ruling in the Labor Department’s favor may reverberate across the federal workforce, both the American Federation of Government Employees and one attorney say, potentially foreclosing office returns as a subject of bargaining.
“It could set up a precedent,” said Michael Fallings, a partner in Tully Rinckey PLLC’s Austin office that represents federal employees. The “argument that it’s non-negotiable is interesting, because that is usually negotiable between employees,” he said.
“I would imagine other agencies may rely upon the same arguments,” Fallings said.
