Labor-Management Forums Created

President Obama on Wednesday signed an executive order creating labor-management forums within the government. The order creates forums at the agency level as well as a National Council on Federal Labor Management, which will include all of the major federal unions and employee groups and will be led by the deputy director for the Office of Management and Budget and the director of the Office of Personnel Management.

While the order does not require agencies to bargain over so-called permissive bargaining issues, which include the number and kind of employees assigned to do a job and the technology used to do it, it does require the new national council to create a handful of pilot programs that would test bargaining over permissive subjects in some agencies.

What I find most interesting is that the new national council will play a key role in developing recommendations for innovative ways to improve the delivery of services and products to the public while cutting costs and advancing federal employee interests. It will be interesting to see how the new national council collaborates on programs like the new open government initiative, as well as other technology-specific initiatives designed to improve federal worker productivity and public engagement.