Federal Labor Management Forums are “Key to Making Agencies Model Employers and Creating High-Performance Workplaces”
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
IFPTE Commends Biden-Harris Administration and OPM for Executive Order Establishing Agency Partnerships
WASHINGTON, DC – The executive officers of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE) welcomed President Biden’s Executive Order (EO) on “Scaling and Expanding the Use of Registered Apprenticeships in Industries and the Federal Government and Promoting Labor-Management Forums.” The EO supports two key recommendations of the White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment’s Report to the President: the reinstitution of federal labor management forums at federal agencies and support for registered apprenticeships through federal funding. The EO also includes steps to expand apprenticeship programs to provide pathways to employment in federal government.
IFPTE President Matthew Biggs and IFPTE Secretary-Treasurer Gay Henson:
“Without reservation, we welcome President Biden’s EO to reinstitute labor management forums. This EO gives federal employees, through their unions, and federal agency management a venue for working collaboratively to solve problems and agree on ways to improve federal workplaces, achieve efficiencies, and better serve the American public. We have long held labor management partnership as key to making federal agencies model employers and creating high-performance workplaces. The federal workforce is the government’s most important and valuable asset and federal employees’ unions give these dedicated and skilled civil servants a voice at work and opportunities for federal workers and agencies to advance efficient and effective government. Labor management forums that are a venue for pre-decisional involvement are the best way to achieve productive labor relations, which ultimately serves the public interest.
We know too well how the lack of partnership and agency management’s unwillingness to work with federal unions results in counterproductive policies, wasteful policies, and unnecessary discord. Just recently, the IFPTE-affiliated National Association of Immigration Judges (NAIJ) was told by Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR) managers that they must submit for approval public comments and speaking engagement requests, which is totally out of step with the Biden-Harris Administration’s strong support for federal labor unions. EOIR’s gagging of NAIJ is not only a deeply misguided reversal of over five decades of precedent where NAIJ has spoken on behalf of its members, but it’s also an unnecessary misstep that the agency could have avoided if the agency agreed to engage with the union through a partnership that includes pre-decisional involvement.
In addition to helping to address these specific instances where federal agencies are falling short of workers’ and unions’ expectations, labor-management forums could serve as an administration-wide vehicle for helping President Biden and Vice President Harris realize the vision of the White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment in a meaningful and consistent fashion.”
Across the United States and Canada, IFPTE represents 90,000 highly skilled workers in the federal, public, and private sectors. IFPTE is an affiliate of the AFL-CIO and the CLC. More information can be found at www.IFPTE.org.
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