President Clinton Friday issued a memorandum calling for federal agencies to "redouble" their efforts to improve labor-management relations in the government.
The memo, titled "Reaffirmation of Executive Order 12871," is an effort to address federal unions' concerns that many managers have not adhered to the 1993 order. The order instructed managers to set up partnership councils with unions and to bargain with unions over more workplace issues.
"I direct agencies to develop a plan with their unions at appropriate levels of recognition for implementing this memorandum and the Executive Order," Clinton said Friday. "Whenever possible, workplace issues should be resolved through consensus using interest-based problem-solving techniques."
Clinton is also ordering agencies to report to the Office of Management and Budget each year on their progress toward the goals of the Executive Order. The first report is due April 14, 2000.
Labor-management partnership councils have sprouted up around government since the Executive Order was issued and are improving labor-management relations at varying levels of success.
But many managers have resisted the order's call to bargain over so-called "permissive," or b(1), issues, saying an expanded scope of bargaining would slow down federal operations. The battle over b(1) bargaining went all the way to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, which ruled in June that Clinton's order gave unions no legal rights. The court said the President must enforce an Executive Order through "persuasion and, ultimately, termination of the resisting official."
Federal union representatives met with administration officials earlier this fall to discuss ways to improve agency compliance with the order. The result of that meeting-and administration meetings with agency officials and management groups-was Friday's memo.