Transitioning the FLRA

Labor law is a pet interest of mine, so I was curious to see what Bob Gilson had to say in a FedSmith column about how the transition teams are approaching the Federal Labor Relations Authority. No real surprises in the story: it sounds like the main topics at hand were whether to revive the labor-management partnership councils from the Clinton years, and how to both speed up FLRA decisions while also promoting negotiated settlements. It was interesting to note that the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers General Counsel, Julia Clark, is on the team reviewing the FLRA. This seems to be a pattern Obama is following, of putting labor folks, or labor-sympathetic folks, on the teams reviewing personnel and labor agencies. I know pro-labor NYU Professor Cynthia Estlund is helping lead the review of the National Labor Relations Board, and there's a labor rep on the team overseeing the Office of Personnel Management (though she's from UNITE HERE, rather than a federal labor agency).