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Washington, D.C.?In the wake of today's favorable decision by the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA), President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) called for "an immediate election" by employees of the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) on their petition to unionize.

"In clear and unequivocal language," Kelley said, "the FLRA has ruled that a single nationwide bargaining unit is an appropriate one for SEC employees." In a lengthy, unanimous opinion, the Authority reviewed in detail the SEC's arguments seeking to overturn the decision of the FLRA's Washington regional director, Kelley said, and consistently supported his ruling and call for an election.

Today's decision, the NTEU leader said, "vindicates, once again, what we have been saying from the beginning of this organizing campaign? that these employees rightfully belong in a single, nationwide bargaining unit and, once again, refutes every argument that SEC has advanced in support of its ongoing effort to deny this basic right to its employees."

FLRA is a three?member independent body that oversees federal sector labor relations. NTEU has been engaged for nearly a year in an effort to organize, into one bargaining unit, some 1,800 SEC headquarters and field employees.

Five months ago, the FLRA's Washington regional director supported a single bargaining unit and ordered an election. SEC took the full 60 days allowed under the law before filing its appeal of that decision with the FLRA.

"We said two months ago," Kelley said, "and I repeat now that SEC's appeal raised no new substantive issues that had not been considered and rejected by the FLRA regional director. With this decision of the full FLRA, there can be no doubt now of the proper course, and I urge SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt to move forward with us to let these employees speak their minds" on this issue.

SEC has argued that to the extent there is unionization within the agency, it should include 1 I separate bargaining units, a position that Kelley has described as "clearly, a desperation divide?and?conquer technique advanced by the anti?union law firm the SEC has hired to direct its efforts to deny their employees the right to choose for themselves."

A nationwide bargaining unit would include some 1,200 professional and nonprofessional SEC employees at headquarters in Washington, and another 600 who work in five regional and four district offices around the country.

NTEU is the nation's largest independent federal union, representing about 155,000 employees in 24 agencies and departments.

For more information visit the NTEU web site at www.nteu.org

For specific information regarding the SEC organizing campaign, go to http://www.nteu.org/Organizing/SEC.html

For related press releases on the SEC campaign, see the Press Kit Section of the NTEU Web Site