Obama Executive Order on Labor-Management Forum

President Barack Obama signed an executive order today creating a "Labor-Management Forum"--a national partnership including both management and labor representatives to discuss labor issues and try to resolve differences, to advise the president on labor-related issues, and also to set up similar entities at the agency level.

Unlike an earlier version of the order, it will not require agencies to collectively bargain over the so-called "permissive issues," such as employee grading, technology, method of work, and other issues which are exempted from collective bargaining by Title V of the federal code. However, it will require the forum to create "pilot programs" with a small number of agencies to test such bargaining on an individual agency level.

The order also requires that the forum serve as a "venue" for labor or management if the agency-level forums fail to resolve differences--which union leaders had suggested as a way to ensure that the order is enforced.

President Bill Clinton created a similar partnership, but the practice was discontinued under President George W. Bush.

More on this to come shortly.