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Washington, D.C.-- Acting as counsel for the Patent Office Professional Association (POPA), the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) has taken to a federal appeals court a decision by the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) that jeopardizes the gains achieved through federal labor?management partnership over the past five years.

NTEU President Robert M. Tobias said the 2?1 FLRA decision undercuts the intent of the 1993 Executive Order by President Clinton to make mandatory subjects of collective bargaining certain matters that previously had been bargainable only at the discretion of agency management.

He said the decision, if it stands, "would have very unfortunate consequences affecting not just the gains of partnership in the executive branch over the past five years but of the effort to reinvent government as well." The challenge to the FLRA decision was filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

Executive Order 12871, issued in late 1993, established the National Partnership Council (NPC) and directed federal agencies to bargain over "permissive" as well as mandatory subjects under the Civil Service Reform Act.

Tobias said federal employees as well as members of the NPC itself believed the president's intent in the Executive Order was to expand collective bargaining rights and give those in the federal workforce a greater voice in their workplaces through partnership

The Order is clear on its face, he said, electing to make bargaining mandatory and . binding agency heads and their subordinates to act in accord with its terms.

The FLRA decision earlier this summer came in a case involving the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) of the Commerce Department.