Biden Administration Restores Labor-Management Forums
The Biden Administration is fully restoring labor-management forums, which are groups for federal management and unions to discuss problems and share solutions for the workforce. The forums were largely dormant since President Trump disbanded them in 2017.
The executive order titled Scaling and Expanding the Use of Registered Apprenticeships in Industries and the Federal Government and Promoting Labor-Management Forums, officially rescinds President Trump’s executive order that abolished such groups in 2017, although some agencies have been holding independent meetings where unions and management share information.
It follows a pattern where Republican presidents like presidents Trump and Bush disband the forums, only to have Democratic presidents like Presidents Clinton, Obama, and Biden reinstall them.
“Labor-Management Forums, as complements to the existing collective bargaining process, allow managers and employees to collaborate in order to continue to deliver the highest quality goods and services to the American people,” President Biden’s executive order says.
Order Details
The order creates joint labor-management committees or councils or adapts existing committees or councils to “help identify problems and propose solutions to better serve the public and agency mission.”
It stipulates that employees and union representatives must have “pre-decisional involvement in workplace matters.”
In a change from previous forums, this order also instructs the forums to keep tabs on changes in employee satisfaction, manager satisfaction, and organizational performance that result from forum policies.
The leaders of each labor-management forum have 180 days to submit a written implementation plan to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which then has 60 days to certify the plan.
The plan will serve as a roadmap for agencies and unions and is not intended to replace collective bargaining agreements.
Union leaders praised the move, particularly the involvement in workforce decisions.
“It is our experience that predecisional input inherent in conversations between labor and management is a productive means to give employees a say in agency decisions, solve problems in a non-adversarial way, address workplace issues that hinder efficiency and improve services to the American people,” said National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) national president Doreen Greenwald.
“We think these forums are invaluable. Through open dialogue and pre-decisional involvement, we can avoid a lot of disputes and delays,” said National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE) national president Randy Erwin.
