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Washington, D.C.—As part of continuing efforts to strengthen its bargaining unit structure, the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) has won overwhelming support among professional employees of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to consolidate into a single bargaining unit under federal labor law.

NTEU’s single FDA bargaining unit now includes some 6,000 agency employees, said NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley, including about 4,000 professional employees who voted by a nearly two-to-one margin to be included in a single unit with some 2,000 agency support personnel.

The successful vote, 673 to 341, continues NTEU’s efforts to include the employees of a given federal agency in a single bargaining unit spread over local chapters throughout the country, and comes on the heels of a similar successful vote among some 12,500 professional employees of the Internal Revenue Service in September, President Kelley said.

“A single unit structure not only helps at the bargaining table by emphasizing that employees speak with a single voice,” the NTEU leader said, “it is a key step in solidifying the solidarity that it so important to effective employee representation.”

In addition to votes at the IRS and FDA, NTEU has petitioned the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA), the body that oversees federal sector labor relations, for a vote to consolidate into a single unit its present bargaining unit structure in the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Kelley said.

Under federal labor law, a consolidated bargaining unit structures requires an affirmative vote of those agency employees classified as “professional” to join in a single unit with “non-professional” employees.

As the largest independent federal union, NTEU represents some 150,000 employees in 25 agencies and departments.