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Washington, D.C.—The president of the nation’s largest independent union of federal employees today warned of a potentially serious and costly disruption in federal sector labor-management relations stemming from an administration move to vacate all seven seats on a key panel charged with decision-making responsibilities on federal workplace conditions and related matters.

President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) called “irresponsible” President Bush’s action, taken with no notice, to terminate immediately the terms of all seven members of the Federal Service Impasses Panel (FSIP). Along with federal agencies and other labor organizations, NTEU has cases pending before the FSIP, and other cases "likely are in the pipeline” heading for FSIP consideration, Kelley said.

“Without an actively-functioning FSIP,” the NTEU leader said, “the nation faces a costly disruption in labor relations” in the federal sector, with the likelihood of “a serious backlog of cases that eventually will have to be decided.”

Moreover, the union president said, the FSIP’s parent body, the three-member Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA), which has overall responsibility for federal sector labor-management relations, has been operating for months without anyone filling its key position of General Counsel.

That, President Kelley said, has disrupted consideration of matters within the responsibility of the Authority, including the issuance of unfair labor practice complaints. Among the FLRA General Counsel’s other key responsibilities are to take steps to encourage the use of alternative dispute resolution techniques and to expand labor and management training and education programs. “Our nation cannot afford these vacancies,” the NTEU leader said.

The FSIP, which operates as an arm of the FLRA, is responsible for resolving impasses that might occur involving federal agencies and their unions arising from negotiations over conditions of employment under several important statutes, including the key Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute.

The members of the FSIP serve part-time at the pleasure of the president. The three members of the parent FLRA, which was established by the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, serve full-time five-year terms.

“While the president has the right to take this action” with respect to the FSIP, President Kelley said, “it was done with no notice and with no indication of when these positions would be filled.”

The NTEU leader said she “fears that this action by the president is another step in an effort to reduce the effectiveness of employee voices in the federal workplace,” pointing to an executive order early in the administration abolishing labor-management partnerships.

“We ought to be using every available tool to involve managers and front-line workers in a cooperative effort to bring to the American people the best possible service, efficiently and at the best possible cost,” Kelley said. “Steps like vacating every seat on the FSIP and failing to fill the office of FLRA General Counsel don’t help. They hurt.”