Executive Order: Creating Labor-Management Forums To Improve Delivery of Government Services

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/executive-order-creating-labor-management-forums-improve-delivery-government-servic

For Immediate Release December 09, 2009 Executive Order: Creating Labor-Management Forums To Improve Delivery of Government Services

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and in order to establish a cooperative and productive form of labor-management relations throughout the executive branch, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. Policy. Federal employees and their union representatives are an essential source of front-line ideas and information about the realities of delivering Government services to the American people.

A nonadversarial forum for managers, employees, and employees' union representatives to discuss Government operations will promote satisfactory labor relations and improve the productivity and effectiveness of the Federal Government. Labor-management forums, as complements to the existing collective bargaining process, will allow managers and employees to collaborate in continuing to deliver the highest quality services to the American people. Management should discuss workplace challenges and problems with labor and endeavor to develop solutions jointly, rather than advise union representatives of predetermined solutions to problems and then engage in bargaining over the impact and implementation of the predetermined solutions.

The purpose of this order is to establish a cooperative and productive form of labor-management relations throughout the executive branch.

Sec. 2. The National Council on Federal Labor-Management Relations. There is established the National Council on Federal Labor-Management Relations (Council).

(a) Membership. The Council shall be composed of the following members appointed or designated by the President:

(i) the Director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and Deputy Director for Management of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), who shall serve as Co-Chairs of the Council; (ii) the Chair of the Federal Labor Relations Authority; (iii) a Deputy Secretary or other officer with department- or agency-wide authority from each of five executive departments or agencies not otherwise represented on the Council, who shall serve for terms of 2 years; (iv) the President of the American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO; (v) the President of the National Federation of Federal Employees; (vi) the President of the National Treasury Employees Union; (vii) the President of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, AFLCIO; (viii) the heads of three other labor unions that represent Federal employees and are not otherwise represented on the Council, who shall serve for terms of 2 years; (ix) the President of the Senior Executives Association; and (x) the President of the Federal Managers Association.

(b) Responsibilities and Functions. The Council shall advise the President on matters involving labor-management relations in the executive branch. Its activities shall include, to the extent permitted by law:

(i) supporting the creation of department- or agency-level labor-management forums and promoting partnership efforts between labor and management in the executive branch; (ii) developing suggested measurements and metrics for the evaluation of the effectiveness of the Council and department or agency labormanagement forums in order to promote consistent, appropriate, and administratively efficient measurement and evaluation processes across departments and agencies; (iii) collecting and disseminating information about, and providing guidance on, labor-management relations improvement efforts in the executive branch, including results achieved; (iv) utilizing the expertise of individuals both within and outside the Federal Government to foster successful labor-management relations, including through training of department and agency personnel in methods of dispute resolution and cooperative methods of labormanagement relations; (v) developing recommendations for innovative ways to improve delivery of services and products to the public while cutting costs and advancing employee interests; (vi) serving as a venue for addressing systemic failures of department- or agency-level forums established pursuant to section 3 of this order; and (vii) providing recommendations to the President for the implementation of several pilot programs within the executive branch, described in section 4 of this order, for bargaining over subjects set forth in 5 U.S.C. 7106(b)(1).

(i) The Co-Chairs shall convene and preside at meetings of the Council, determine its agenda, and direct its work. (ii) The Council shall seek input from nonmember executive departments and agencies, particularly smaller agencies. It also may, from time to time, invite persons from the private and public sectors to submit information. The Council shall also seek input from Federal manager and professional associations, companies, nonprofit organizations, State and local governments, Federal employees, and customers of Federal services, as needed. (iii) To the extent permitted by law and subject to the availability of appropriations, OPM shall provide such facilities, support, and administrative services to the Council as the Director of OPM deems appropriate. (iv) Members of the Council shall serve without compensation for their work on the Council, but may be allowed travel expenses, including per diem in lieu of subsistence, as authorized by law for persons serving intermittently in Government service (5 U.S.C. 5701-5707), consistent with the availability of funds. (v) The heads of executive departments and agencies shall, to the extent permitted by law, provide to the Council such assistance, information, and advice as the Council may require for purposes of carrying out its functions. (vi) Insofar as the Federal Advisory Committee Act, as amended (5 U.S.C. App.), may apply to the Council, any functions of the President under that Act, except that of reporting to the Congress, shall be performed by the Director of OPM in accordance with the guidelines that have been issued by the Administrator of General Services.

(d) Termination. The Council shall terminate 2 years after the date of this order unless extended by the President.

Sec. 3. Implementation of Labor-Management Forums Throughout the Executive Branch.

(a) The head of each executive department or agency that is subject to the provisions of the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Act (5 U.S.C. 7101 et seq.), or any other authority permitting employees of such department or agency to select an exclusive representative shall, to the extent permitted by law:

(i) establish department- or agency-level labormanagement forums by creating labor-management committees or councils at the levels of recognition and other appropriate levels agreed to by labor and management, or adapting existing councils or committees if such groups exist, to help identify problems and propose solutions to better serve the public and agency missions; (ii) allow employees and their union representatives to have pre-decisional involvement in all workplace matters to the fullest extent practicable, without regard to whether those matters are negotiable subjects of bargaining under 5 U.S.C. 7106; provide adequate information on such matters expeditiously to union representatives where not prohibited by law; and make a good-faith attempt to resolve issues concerning proposed changes in conditions of employment, including those involving the subjects set forth in 5 U.S.C. 7106(b)(1), through discussions in its labor-management forums; and (iii) evaluate and document, in consultation with union representatives and consistent with the purposes of this order and any further guidance provided by the Council, changes in employee satisfaction, manager satisfaction, and organizational performance resulting from the labor-management forums.

(b) Each head of an executive department or agency in which there exists one or more exclusive representatives shall, in consultation with union representatives, prepare and submit for approval, within 90 days of the date of this order, a written implementation plan to the Council. The plan shall:

(i) describe how the department or agency will conduct a baseline assessment of the current state of labor relations within the department or agency; (ii) report the extent to which the department or agency has established labor-management forums, as set forth in subsection (a)(i) of this section, or may participate in the pilot projects described in section 4 of this order; (iii) address how the department or agency will work with the exclusive representatives of its employees through its labor-management forums to develop department-, agency-, or bargaining unit-specific metrics to monitor improvements in areas such as labor-management satisfaction, productivity gains, cost savings, and other areas as identified by the relevant labormanagement forum's participants; and (iv) explain the department's or agency's plan for devoting sufficient resources to the implementation of the plan.

(c) The Council shall review each executive department or agency implementation plan within 30 days of receipt and provide a recommendation to the Co-Chairs as to whether to certify that the plan satisfies all requirements of this order. Plans that are determined by the Co-Chairs to be insufficient will be returned to the department or agency with guidance for improvement and resubmission within 30 days. Each department or agency covered by subsection (b) of this section must have a certified implementation plan in place no later than 150 days after the date of this order, unless the Co-Chairs of the Council authorize an extension of the deadline.

(a) In order to evaluate the impact of bargaining over permissive subjects, several pilot projects of specified duration shall be established in which some executive departments or agencies elect to bargain over some or all of the subjects set forth in 5 U.S.C. 7106(b)(1) and waive any objection to participating in impasse procedures set forth in 5 U.S.C. 7119 that is based on the subjects being permissive. The Council shall develop recommendations for establishing the pilot projects, including (i) recommendations for evaluating such pilot projects on the basis, among other things, of their impacts on organizational performance, employee satisfaction, and labor relations of the affected departments or agencies; (ii) recommended methods for evaluating the effectiveness of dispute resolution procedures adopted and followed in the course of the pilot projects; and (iii) a recommended timeline for expeditious implementation of the pilot programs.

(b) The Council shall present its recommendations to the President within 150 days after the date of this order.

(c) No later than 18 months after implementation of the pilot projects, the Council shall submit a report to the President evaluating the results of the pilots and recommending appropriate next steps with respect to agency bargaining over the subjects set forth in 5 U.S.C. 7106(b)(1).

(a) Nothing in this order shall abrogate any collective bargaining agreements in effect on the date of this order.

(b) Nothing in this order shall be construed to limit, preclude, or prohibit any head of an executive department or agency from electing to negotiate over any or all of the subjects set forth in 5 U.S.C. 7106(b)(1) in any negotiation.

(i) authority granted by law to an executive department, agency, or the head thereof; or (ii) functions of the Director of OMB relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

(d) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

(e) This order is intended only to improve the internal management of the executive branch and is not intended to, and does not, create any right to administrative or judicial review, or any other right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

This government is acting like they've hit the lotto on Saturday night and have run out pissing away as much as it can on its own form of indulgences. It will be interesting to see what happens when Monday morning comes and they find out their 'ticket' was for a different draw date.

When his urban supporters and the other less sparsely distributed denizens don't get the goodies they've been promised the shit starts to hit the fan. The rest of us should protect our assets, sit back, and watch them eat their own.

Note: The following post is a quote:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2404915/posts

Obama’s Fantasy Jobs Plan
Townhall.com ^ | December 10, 2009 | Steve Chapman
Posted on December 10, 2009 2:24:26 PM PST by Kaslin

This is that wonderful time of year when a roly-poly, white-bearded fellow descends from the North Pole to lavish us with presents. So when President Obama follows suit, maybe it’s just his way of getting into the spirit of the season.

He sounded uncannily like Santa Claus the other day in a speech taking credit for creating and saving 1.6 million jobs and vowing to do even more. The recent uptick in the economy and dip in unemployment, the president announced, came about because of the $787 billion economic stimulus package he signed last February.

But with unemployment still at 10 percent, Obama perceives a need for the government to generate additional jobs — which he plans to do with a new collection of tax cuts, public works expenditures, subsidies to homeowners for energy-saving investments, and a partridge in a pear tree. Though he stressed his commitment to fiscal responsibility, the president studiously avoided putting a price tag on this plan.

Like a certain jolly old elf, he doesn’t want us to worry about the cost. After all, fiscal stimulus is supposed to more than pay for itself by goosing consumption expenditures to unleash a new surge of jobs, economic activity and tax revenue. It’s a Christmas that will go on for months or even years.

(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...

Note: The following text is a quote:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2405032/posts

A Small-Biz Killer
Investors.com ^ | December 10, 2009 | iNVESTORS BUSINESS DAILY staff
Posted on December 10, 2009 5:04:41 PM PST by Kaslin

Economy: The White House and congressional Democrats relish every chance to praise small business. So why are they now so eager to heap even more burdens on these indispensable job-creators?

It’s long been a cynical rhetorical device for Democrats, who’ve historically paraded as the party of the little guy, to praise shopkeepers and other denizens of Main Street.

This stance moreover lets them keep targeting Wall Street, the symbol of big business — even though Wall Street often supports Washington’s regulatory schemes at the expense of Main Street.

So in pushing their ideas for job creation, President Obama and other Democratic leaders unfailingly praise small entrepreneurs, correctly, as this country’s greatest generators of jobs. Their fealty to Main Street, however, becomes suspect the instant they return to their policymaking offices.

Just this week, congressional Democrats are pushing a vast new bureaucracy via the Consumer Financial Products Act. In their infinite conceit, they’ve redefined financial products — usually the preserve of brokers, banks and other lending institutions — to cover a wide range of behavior in which small businesses engage.

Indeed, some startup enterprises are so small they can’t tap traditional sources of credit. They may max out credit cards, take cash out of home equity or find other ways to self-finance.

Now they’ll be regulated. No question, these practices are risky, but the consequences befall the startups and their creditors alone.

We’re not talking about “too big to fail” institutions, which these same politicians have protected and coddled for decades.

No, we’re talking about frustrating startups and increasing the likelihood of their failure.

(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...

Note: The following post is a quote:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2405023/posts

The New Jobs Bull
Investors.com ^ | December 10, 2009 | INVESTORS BUSINESS DAILY staff
Posted on December 10, 2009 4:56:17 PM PST by Kaslin

Economy: In a follow-on to the president’s jobs summit, Congress is cooking up a jobs bill for a vote next week. It’s the same tired recipe to expand government at the expense of the private sector. Call it a jobs kill.

Last week, we watched as 130 Big Labor bosses, community organizers, left-wing think tanks and a few token CEOs supposedly put their heads together to come up with a way to create jobs in the worst U.S. recession since 1929.

It was window dressing. Instead of looking to proven solutions to create jobs, like tax cuts and free trade, Big Labor’s agenda ruled.

The summit’s three recommendations — Cash for Caulkers, bailouts for city and state governments, and tax holidays for small businesses — all not coincidentally amounted to gravy for unions.

The agenda has now moved to Congress, where House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hopes to pass a “jobs bill” as soon as next week.

Whipping out Uncle Sam’s credit card, Pelosi proposes charging an additional $75 billion to $150 billion to extend unemployment benefits, beef up infrastructure spending, create targeted tax incentives to small business to carry out her green agenda, and bail out profligate states and municipalities.

It’s remarkably similar to the jobs summit agenda. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has a plan just like it in the works, too.

(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...

Pure Alinsky.

Talk about things as though the people who are listening have some sort of input, when in fact it's just a front for creating the illusion of a democratic decision that's already been reached, and then implement the pre-ordained power grab.

These Obamatards are just so sure that since they are barely able to read, nobody on our side could possibly make it through and absorb Alinsky so that we recognize it and counter it.

Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.

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