National Treasury Employees Union and Department of Health and Human Services, Family Support Administration (Authority decision, September 22, 1987)

Final FLRA decision. The Authority finds both office selection proposals negotiable and orders the agency to bargain on request or as the parties agree. An aggrieved person may seek judicial review by filing a petition in an appropriate United States court of appeals within 60 days after issuance under 5 U.S.C. § 7123(a).

Plain-English summary

The National Treasury Employees Union proposed that employees choose offices by federal service seniority and choose their office mates if sharing. The Family Support Administration argued that office assignments were part of its work methods and assignment of work. The union agreed to apply the proposals within the agency's program groupings. The Authority found no demonstrated interference with the agency's office plan or assignment of duties within that framework, and ordered bargaining on both proposals.

Decision snapshot

• Authority: Work assignment and methods of performing work under 5 U.S.C. § 7106.
• Outcome: Both proposals within the duty to bargain; agency ordered to bargain on request.
• Key point: The agency did not show that employee choices within its program groupings would disrupt its work method or work assignments.

Full text (FLRA public release)

[ v28 p1108 ]
28:1108(144)NG

The decision of the Authority follows:

28 FLRA NO. 144

NATIONAL TREASURY
EMPLOYEES UNION

Union

and

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND
HUMAN SERVICES, FAMILY
SUPPORT ADMINISTRATION

Agency

Case No. 0-NG-1384

DECISION AND ORDER ON NEGOTIABILITY ISSUES

I. Statement of the Case

This case is before the Authority because of a negotiability appeal filed by the Union under section 7105(a)(2)(E) of the Federal Service Labor - Management Relations Statute (the Statute) and presents issues concerning the negotiability of two proposals. For the reasons discussed below, we find that both proposals are negotiable.

II. Proposals 1 and 2

Proposal 1

6. Employees can select their office in the new building site.
   Selections will be made by seniority, to be determined by the date service began with the federal government.

Proposal 2

7. If employees share offices, they must be able to choose their office
   mate.

A. Position of the Parties

The Agency argues that these proposals violate management's right to select the technology, methods and means of performing work, and to assign work, under sections 7106(b)(1) and 7106(a)(2)(B) of the Statute.

The Agency indicates that its wish to group employees according to the program in which they work is to facilitate communication between employees, thus enhancing the Agency's ability to accomplish its mission more efficiently. In sup-port of this position, the Agency notes that employees who work together on projects need to share files, computers and data bases. Furthermore, the Agency argues that its telephone system was designed to fit the program grouping arrangement, and that it cannot easily be changed. In essence, the Agency's claim is that the assignment of office space is directly related to the assignment of work, and the methods and means of performing work.

The Union's position is that the Agency's argument regarding the need to place employees in the same work pro-gram in related spaces (corridors) is moot. The Union indicates that the matter is moot because it has agreed to implement its proposals within the program grouping arrangement established by the Agency. The Union claims that office selection is a procedure under 5 U.S.C. 7106(b)(2) and that it addresses a condition of employment. The Union also con-tends that the Agency has failed to show that the proposed arrangement would in any manner affect the Agency's right to select the technology, methods and means of performing work. In addition, the Union notes that the Agency has failed to state which persons and programs would be affected, in which manner productivity would be lost, or how long these assignments would last so as to require permanent room assignment as part of the technology of performing work.

B. Analysis and Conclusion

When an agency asserts that a proposal concerning office space selection interferes with its right to determine the technology, methods and means of accomplishing its work, the agency must demonstrate that its choice of office space design has a technological relationship to accomplishing its work, and that the Union's proposal would interfere with the purpose for which the office space design was adopted. Federal Union of Scientists and Engineers, National Association of Government Employees, Local R1-44 and Naval Underwater Systems Center, Newport, Rhode Island, 28 FLRA No. 54 (1987) (Proposal 1).

In that case, the Authority found that the Agency had established a relationship between the assignment of work space and the performance of the Agency's work, thus making the grouping of employees on a functional basis a method and means of performing work under section 7106(b)(1) of the Statute. Similarly, in American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, AFL

• CIO, Local 2910 and Library of Congress, 19 FLRA 1180 (1985), the Authority
  concluded that the agency had demonstrated that the purpose of grouping employees according to their "primary functions" in the same work area was directly related to the agency's operations, and, thus it constituted a method and means of performing work under section 7106(b)(1) of the Statute.

This case, however, is different from the cases cited above. The Union has agreed, in its response brief, to implement these proposals within the program arrangement selected by the Agency. By so doing, the Agency can still accomplish its objective of maintaining communication between employees who work on the same program, and reference mate-rials, computers and telephones would be accessible to all employees. Thus, we find that the Agency's arguments fail to demonstrate that office space and office mate selection, within the framework of the program-based arrangement, would in any manner interfere with the purpose for which the office space design was adopted.

Moreover, the Agency has not established any technological relationship between the space design and the work performed, nor any interference between these proposals and the office design selected by the Agency. Consequently, absent a technological relationship for a given office design, and absent proof of an actual interference of office space design, we find these proposals within the duty to bargain.

We note that the Agency does not argue, and it is not apparent from the record, that the proposals would affect directly or indirectly the working conditions of nonunit employees. Accordingly, this case is distinguishable from American Federation of Government Employees, Local 12, AFL - CIO and department of Labor, 25 FLRA No. 82 (1987), where the agency raised the argument that the proposals were nonnegotiable because they affected the conditions of employment of non-bargaining unit employees.

The Agency also claims that these proposals violate its management right to assign work under 7106(a)(2)(B) of the Statute because the assignment of office space is directly related to the assignment of work. However, we find that these proposals in no manner preclude the Agency from assigning specified duties to its employees. As noted above, the Union has agreed to implement its proposals within the pro-gram arrangement selected by the Agency. Accordingly, we find that these proposals do not interfere with the right to assign work under section 7106(a)(2)(B) of the Statute. See American Federation of Government Local 2302 and U.S. Army Armor Center and Fort Knox, Fort Knox, Kentucky, 19 FLRA 778 (1985) (Proposal 2).

III. Order

The Agency must, upon request, or as otherwise agreed to by the parties, bargain on both proposals. 1

Issued, Washington, D.C., September 22, 1987.

Jerry L. Calhoun, Chairman

Henry B. Frazier III, Member

Jean McKee, Member

FEDERAL LABOR RELATIONS AUTHORITY

FOOTNOTES

Footnote 1 In finding these proposals to be
negotiable, we make no judgment as to their merits.