Biden nominates OSC deputy to join FLRA

President Biden on Thursday nominated Associate Special Counsel Anne Wagner to serve as the third and final member of the Federal Labor Relations Authority, a move that labor officials hope will finally settle the agency’s leadership shuffle.

Wagner has served in her position at the Office of Special Counsel since 2015. Prior to that, she served for six years as vice chairwoman of the Merit Systems Protection Board—a tenure she shared with FLRA Chairwoman Susan Tsui Grundmann—and as general counsel of the Government Accountability office’s Personnel Appeals Board. She also served for nearly 20 years as assistant general counsel for the American Federation of Government Employees prior to moving into those adjudicative roles.

Her nomination comes after Nancy Anderson Speight quietly withdrew from consideration for the position last October. Speight’s nomination itself replaced the pick of former FLRA Chairman Ernest DuBester, whose confirmation to a new term Republican lawmakers blocked over what DuBester and labor advocates claimed were specious claims of impropriety by conservative activists affiliated with former President Trump.

For more than a year, the FLRA has been ideologically deadlocked due to the vacancy, potentially hamstringing the body’s ability to issue decisions except in non-controversial cases. And last year, the agency’s acting general counsel was forced to step back from the role due to the Federal Vacancies Reform Act’s time limit on officials serving in acting roles, preventing the agency from issuing new complaints in unfair labor practice cases.

Federal employee unions quickly threw their support behind Wagner’s nomination, and urged quick action from the Senate to confirm Suzanne Summerlin to serve as general counsel. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee is scheduled to vote on that nomination next week.

“[The National Treasury Employees Union] supports President Biden’s intent to nominate Anne M. Wagner to the Federal Labor Relations Authority,” said NTEU National President Doreen Greenwald in a statement. “Wagner has extensive experience in the practice of federal sector labor law and labor-management relations, and we urge swift confirmation by the Senate . . . The FLRA plays an important role as a fair, neutral arbiter of labor-management disputes in the federal sector, protecting the rights of federal employees and holding agencies accountable for unfair labor practices, which is why ensuring a fully functioning FLRA is important to frontline civil servants.”

Matt Biggs, national president of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, called Wagner “the ideal nominee” to serve at the FLRA.

“IFPTE applauds President Biden for putting forward Anne Wagner, a highly qualified and highly accomplished nominee, to continue her career in public service as a member of the FLRA,” he said. “With a career that includes serving as vice chair of the Merit Systems Protection Board, as general counsel of the GAO’s personnel appeals, and a remarkable two decades of working on behalf of union-represented federal workers, she has a deep respect for the federal civil service and strong understanding of the federal labor-management statute. We urge the Senate to act swiftly to confirm Ms. Wagner so that the FLRA can function with a full complement of authority members and support stable and harmonious federal labor-management relations.”