OPM rescinds guidance on labor-management partnerships

Just hours after President Bush issued an executive order dissolving labor-management partnerships, officials at the Office of Personnel Management rescinded guidance on the Clinton-era order that encouraged agencies to use partnerships. Bush's executive order dissolved the National Partnership Council created by President Clinton in Executive Order 12871, which required agencies to establish partnership councils to increase union involvement in agency decision-making. Now, OPM and other agencies must "rescind any orders, rules, regulations, guidelines, or policies implementing or enforcing" E.O. 12871. According to a spokesman, OPM is "leaving it up to agencies to implement" Bush's executive order. Many agencies are now combing through their existing agreements with labor unions, trying to ascertain if they are in line with the new President's directive. Other agencies are taking a wait-and-see approach. An Internal Revenue Service spokesman said that agency would wait for guidance from OPM. National Treasury Employee Union President Colleen Kelley often cites the union's relationship with IRS as an example of a successful labor-management partnership. While the new mandate changes the tone of future federal labor-management relations, it does not revoke collective bargaining agreements already in effect. Bruce Waltuck, a compliance specialist at the Labor Department, said he is confident that some form of labor management partnerships will continue to be used in the federal workplace. "Partnership is just a process, it's a just another way or another tool for reaching decisions together," Waltuck said. "With or without an executive order, with or without a mandate to seek a collaborative solution, I think it will happen."