Posts tagged Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute
NIH researchers say agency seeks to block unionization effort
August 7, 2023 // The agency is arguing that postdocs and graduate students aren’t employees, according to union organizers Early-career researchers who work in labs operated by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) have hit a roadblock on their way to unionizing. In June, a group of postdocs, graduate students, and postbaccalaureate researchers asked the agency that oversees the certification of unions by federal employees, the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA), for permission to hold an election to determine whether early-career researchers at NIH are in favor of forming a union. But on Monday, the organizers say, they were told that NIH had submitted paperwork to FLRA arguing that many of the union’s potential members are not employees and don’t have standing to form a union. Union representatives also declined to send Science the entirety of the document NIH submitted to FLRA. But they did share one excerpt, which argued that most of the potential union’s 4800 likely members cannot be considered employees. “The Agency is of the view that individuals in all categories appointed under the CRTA [Cancer Research Training Award] and IRTA [Intramural Research Training Award] authorities, i.e., all categories other than Clinical Fellows, Research Fellows, and Senior Research Fellows, are not employees under the Statute,” the document states, according to the union.
National Right to Work Foundation Blasts FLRA Ruling Trapping Blue Ridge Parkway Employees in Union
June 7, 2023 // FLRA merged two work units at union officials’ behest with no worker input, now cites merger to deny worker request for vote to remove union
FREEDOM FOUNDATION FILES AMICUS BRIEF WITH THE FLRA IN UNION DECERTIFICATION CASE
September 22, 2022 // In an amicus brief recently submitted to the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA), the Freedom Foundation supported a federal employee seeking to establish that the agency’s rules impermissibly limit the ability of her and her colleagues to decertify an unwanted union.
U.S. agency heads can’t review extended bargaining agreements – court
August 16, 2022 // A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday struck down a federal labor board's Trump-era guidance that made it easier for federal agencies to make changes to union contracts that are extended beyond their expiration dates while a new agreement is being negotiated. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit sided with three major federal-worker unions that challenged the Federal Labor Relations Authority's 2020 guidance, which said agency heads can review and alter bargaining agreements that are subject to "continuance clauses." Circuit Judge Gregory Katsas, Circuit Judges Patricia Millett and Neomi Rao, National Treasury Employees Union v. FLRA, U.S. Court of Appeals, Kathryn Bailey of the National Treasury Employees Union, Deputy Solicitor Rebecca Osborne, Joseph Busa of the U.S. Department of Justice,