Creating Labor-Management Forums to Improve Delivery of Government Services, 66203-66206 [E9-29781]

Agencies

• Executive Office of the President
• Presidential Documents

[Federal Register Volume 74, Number 238 (Monday, December 14, 2009)]
[Presidential Documents]
[Pages 66203-66206]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: E9-29781]



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Part II





The President





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Executive Order 13522--Creating Labor-Management Forums to Improve 
Delivery of Government Services



Memorandum of December 9, 2009--Medicare Demonstration to Test Medical 
Homes in Federally Qualified Health Centers


                        Presidential Documents 


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Federal Register

Title 3--
The President

[[Page 66203]]

                Executive Order 13522 of December 9, 2009

                
Creating Labor-Management Forums to Improve 
                Delivery of Government Services

                By the authority vested in me as President by the 
                Constitution and the laws of the United States of 
                America, and in order to establish a cooperative and 
                productive form of labor-management relations 
                throughout the executive branch, it is hereby ordered 
                as follows:

                Section 1. Policy. Federal employees and their union 
                representatives are an essential source of front-line 
                ideas and information about the realities of delivering 
                Government services to the American people. A 
                nonadversarial forum for managers, employees, and 
                employees' union representatives to discuss Government 
                operations will promote satisfactory labor relations 
                and improve the productivity and effectiveness of the 
                Federal Government. Labor-management forums, as 
                complements to the existing collective bargaining 
                process, will allow managers and employees to 
                collaborate in continuing to deliver the highest 
                quality services to the American people. Management 
                should discuss workplace challenges and problems with 
                labor and endeavor to develop solutions jointly, rather 
                than advise union representatives of predetermined 
                solutions to problems and then engage in bargaining 
                over the impact and implementation of the predetermined 
                solutions.

                    The purpose of this order is to establish a 
                cooperative and productive form of labor-management 
                relations throughout the executive branch.

                Sec. 2. The National Council on Federal Labor-
                Management Relations. There is established the National 
                Council on Federal Labor-Management Relations 
                (Council).

                    (a) Membership. The Council shall be composed of 
                the following members appointed or designated by the 
                President:

(i) the Director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and Deputy 
Director for Management of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), who 
shall serve as Co-Chairs of the Council;

(ii) the Chair of the Federal Labor Relations Authority;

(iii) a Deputy Secretary or other officer with department- or agency-wide 
authority from each of five executive departments or agencies not otherwise 
represented on the Council, who shall serve for terms of 2 years;

(iv) the President of the American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-
CIO;

(v) the President of the National Federation of Federal Employees;

(vi) the President of the National Treasury Employees Union;

(vii) the President of the International Federation of Professional and 
Technical Engineers, AFL-CIO;

(viii) the heads of three other labor unions that represent Federal 
employees and are not otherwise represented on the Council, who shall serve 
for terms of 2 years;

(ix) the President of the Senior Executives Association; and

(x) the President of the Federal Managers Association.

                    (b) Responsibilities and Functions. The Council 
                shall advise the President on matters involving labor-
                management relations in the executive branch. Its 
                activities shall include, to the extent permitted by 
                law:

(i) supporting the creation of department- or agency-level labor-management 
forums and promoting partnership efforts between labor and management in 
the executive branch;

[[Page 66204]]

(ii) developing suggested measurements and metrics for the evaluation of 
the effectiveness of the Council and department or agency labor-management 
forums in order to promote consistent, appropriate, and administratively 
efficient measurement and evaluation processes across departments and 
agencies;

(iii) collecting and disseminating information about, and providing 
guidance on, labor-management relations improvement efforts in the 
executive branch, including results achieved;

(iv) utilizing the expertise of individuals both within and outside the 
Federal Government to foster successful labor-management relations, 
including through training of department and agency personnel in methods of 
dispute resolution and cooperative methods of labor-management relations;

(v) developing recommendations for innovative ways to improve delivery of 
services and products to the public while cutting costs and advancing 
employee interests;

(vi) serving as a venue for addressing systemic failures of department- or 
agency-level forums established pursuant to section 3 of this order; and

(vii) providing recommendations to the President for the implementation of 
several pilot programs within the executive branch, described in section 4 
of this order, for bargaining over subjects set forth in 5 U.S.C. 
7106(b)(1).

                    (c) Administration.

(i) The Co-Chairs shall convene and preside at meetings of the Council, 
determine its agenda, and direct its work.

(ii) The Council shall seek input from nonmember executive departments and 
agencies, particularly smaller agencies. It also may, from time to time, 
invite persons from the private and public sectors to submit information. 
The Council shall also seek input from Federal manager and professional 
associations, companies, nonprofit organizations, State and local 
governments, Federal employees, and customers of Federal services, as 
needed.

(iii) To the extent permitted by law and subject to the availability of 
appropriations, OPM shall provide such facilities, support, and 
administrative services to the Council as the Director of OPM deems 
appropriate.

(iv) Members of the Council shall serve without compensation for their work 
on the Council, but may be allowed travel expenses, including per diem in 
lieu of subsistence, as authorized by law for persons serving 
intermittently in Government service (5 U.S.C. 5701-5707), consistent with 
the availability of funds.

(v) The heads of executive departments and agencies shall, to the extent 
permitted by law, provide to the Council such assistance, information, and 
advice as the Council may require for purposes of carrying out its 
functions.

(vi) Insofar as the Federal Advisory Committee Act, as amended (5 U.S.C. 
App.), may apply to the Council, any functions of the President under that 
Act, except that of reporting to the Congress, shall be performed by the 
Director of OPM in accordance with the guidelines that have been issued by 
the Administrator of General Services.

                    (d) Termination. The Council shall terminate 2 
                years after the date of this order unless extended by 
                the President.

                Sec. 3. Implementation of Labor-Management Forums 
                Throughout the Executive Branch. 

                     (a) The head of each executive department or 
                agency that is subject to the provisions of the Federal 
                Service Labor-Management Relations Act (5 U.S.C. 7101 
                et seq.), or any other authority permitting employees 
                of such department or agency to select an exclusive 
                representative shall, to the extent permitted by law:

[[Page 66205]]

(i) establish department- or agency-level labor-management forums by 
creating labor-management committees or councils at the levels of 
recognition and other appropriate levels agreed to by labor and management, 
or adapting existing councils or committees if such groups exist, to help 
identify problems and propose solutions to better serve the public and 
agency missions;

(ii) allow employees and their union representatives to have pre-decisional 
involvement in all workplace matters to the fullest extent practicable, 
without regard to whether those matters are negotiable subjects of 
bargaining under 5 U.S.C. 7106; provide adequate information on such 
matters expeditiously to union representatives where not prohibited by law; 
and make a good-faith attempt to resolve issues concerning proposed changes 
in conditions of employment, including those involving the subjects set 
forth in 5 U.S.C. 7106(b)(1), through discussions in its labor-management 
forums; and

(iii) evaluate and document, in consultation with union representatives and 
consistent with the purposes of this order and any further guidance 
provided by the Council, changes in employee satisfaction, manager 
satisfaction, and organizational performance resulting from the labor-
management forums.

                    (b) Each head of an executive department or agency 
                in which there exists one or more exclusive 
                representatives shall, in consultation with union 
                representatives, prepare and submit for approval, 
                within 90 days of the date of this order, a written 
                implementation plan to the Council. The plan shall:

(i) describe how the department or agency will conduct a baseline 
assessment of the current state of labor relations within the department or 
agency;

(ii) report the extent to which the department or agency has established 
labor-management forums, as set forth in subsection (a)(i) of this section, 
or may participate in the pilot projects described in section 4 of this 
order;

(iii) address how the department or agency will work with the exclusive 
representatives of its employees through its labor-management forums to 
develop department-, agency-, or bargaining unit-specific metrics to 
monitor improvements in areas such as labor-management satisfaction, 
productivity gains, cost savings, and other areas as identified by the 
relevant labor-management forum's participants; and

(iv) explain the department's or agency's plan for devoting sufficient 
resources to the implementation of the plan.

                    (c) The Council shall review each executive 
                department or agency implementation plan within 30 days 
                of receipt and provide a recommendation to the Co-
                Chairs as to whether to certify that the plan satisfies 
                all requirements of this order. Plans that are 
                determined by the Co-Chairs to be insufficient will be 
                returned to the department or agency with guidance for 
                improvement and resubmission within 30 days. Each 
                department or agency covered by subsection (b) of this 
                section must have a certified implementation plan in 
                place no later than 150 days after the date of this 
                order, unless the Co-Chairs of the Council authorize an 
                extension of the deadline.

                Sec. 4. Negotiation over Permissive Subjects of 
                Bargaining.

                    (a) In order to evaluate the impact of bargaining 
                over permissive subjects, several pilot projects of 
                specified duration shall be established in which some 
                executive departments or agencies elect to bargain over 
                some or all of the subjects set forth in 5 U.S.C. 
                7106(b)(1) and waive any objection to participating in 
                impasse procedures set forth in 5 U.S.C. 7119 that is 
                based on the subjects being permissive. The Council 
                shall develop recommendations for establishing the 
                pilot projects, including (i) recommendations for 
                evaluating such pilot projects on the basis, among 
                other things, of their impacts on organizational 
                performance, employee satisfaction, and labor relations 
                of the affected departments or agencies; (ii) 
                recommended methods for evaluating the effectiveness of 
                dispute resolution procedures

[[Page 66206]]

                adopted and followed in the course of the pilot 
                projects; and (iii) a recommended timeline for 
                expeditious implementation of the pilot programs.
                    (b) The Council shall present its recommendations 
                to the President within 150 days after the date of this 
                order.
                    (c) No later than 18 months after implementation of 
                the pilot projects, the Council shall submit a report 
                to the President evaluating the results of the pilots 
                and recommending appropriate next steps with respect to 
                agency bargaining over the subjects set forth in 5 
                U.S.C. 7106(b)(1).

                Sec. 5. General Provisions.

                    (a) Nothing in this order shall abrogate any 
                collective bargaining agreements in effect on the date 
                of this order.
                    (b) Nothing in this order shall be construed to 
                limit, preclude, or prohibit any head of an executive 
                department or agency from electing to negotiate over 
                any or all of the subjects set forth in 5 U.S.C. 
                7106(b)(1) in any negotiation.
                    (c) Nothing in this order shall be construed to 
                impair or otherwise affect:

(i) authority granted by law to an executive department, agency, or the 
head thereof; or

(ii) functions of the Director of OMB relating to budgetary, 
administrative, or legislative proposals.

                    (d) This order shall be implemented consistent with 
                applicable law and subject to the availability of 
                appropriations.
                    (e) This order is intended only to improve the 
                internal management of the executive branch and is not 
                intended to, and does not, create any right to 
                administrative or judicial review, or any other right 
                or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at 
                law or in equity by any party against the United 
                States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its 
                officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
                
                
                    (Presidential Sig.)

                THE WHITE HOUSE,

                    December 9, 2009.

[FR Doc. E9-29781
Filed 12-11-09; 8:45 am]
Billing code 3195-W0-P