A federal court last week blocked the politically appointed Federal Labor Relations Authority from taking over labor relations work currently performed by nonpartisan career professionals in a major win for AFGE and other unions that sued over the change.
Since 1983, the FLRA’s Regional Directors have adjudicated representation petitions, made appropriate unit determinations, approved election agreements, and certified election results. This system was specifically designed to ensure the expeditious processing of representation matters and has functioned effectively for more than four decades.
But in March, the FLRA issued new rules transferring all of that work to the three-member Authority itself, which is composed of political appointees. It also eliminated the two-level review process that has served as a critical check against errors in the representation system.
In April, AFGE and seven other national unions representing over a million federal employees filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts challenging the changes, which were made without advance notice. The unions argued that the rule violated the Administrative Procedure Act on multiple grounds: it was arbitrary and capricious, its rushed 30-day effective date was unjustified, and the agency unlawfully bypassed the legally required notice-and-comment process. Comments on the rule were due the same day that the changes went into effect.
On June 29, U.S. District Chief Judge Denise Casper ruled in our favor, writing that “the FLRA both failed to provide adequate reasoning for revoking its prior delegation of authority to regional directors and failed to consider reliance interests in the prior delegation system.” The FLRA also cited no evidence to support changing the existing system, she noted.
“This is a strong decision that slows and potentially stymies the FLRA’s attempt to neuter the regional directors,” AFGE National President Everett Kelley said.
FLRA has a right to appeal this decision. AFGE will keep members updated on any further developments.
The plaintiffs in the case are AFGE, the National Association of Government Employees (NAGE/SEIU), the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE-IAM), the International Federation of Professional and Technical Employees (IFPTE), the National Nurses Organizing Committee/National Nurses United (NNOC/NNU), the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and the AFL-CIO. The unions are represented by Bredhoff & Kaiser, PLLC.
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