National Federation of Federal Employees, Local 1380 and Naval Coastal Systems Center, Panama City, Florida (Authority decision, January 28, 1983)

Final FLRA decision. This is a final Authority order. 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). Filing a petition does not stay the Authority's order unless the court orders a stay under 5 U.S.C. § 7123(c).

Plain-English summary

NFFE Local 1380 proposed that employees called back outside their normal shift receive at least four hours of pay and perform only work connected to the emergency. The Authority held the pay guarantee outside the duty to bargain because the applicable rules allowed at most two hours of callback overtime pay without work. It also held that restricting the duties assigned during a callback interfered with management’s right to assign work. It dismissed the union’s petition.

Decision snapshot

• Authority: Negotiability review under 5 U.S.C. § 7105(a)(2)(E).
• Outcome: Both parts of callback proposal nonnegotiable; petition dismissed.
• Key point: A bargaining proposal could not guarantee four hours of callback pay without work or limit management’s assigned duties.

Full text (FLRA public release)

[ v11 p129 ]

11:0129(33)NG

The decision of the Authority follows:

11 FLRA No. 33

NATIONAL FEDERATION OF FEDERAL
EMPLOYEES, LOCAL 1380
Union

and

DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY
NAVAL COASTAL SYSTEMS CENTER
PANAMA CITY, FLORIDA
Agency

Case No. O-NG-519

DECISION AND ORDER ON NEGOTIABILITY ISSUE

The petition for review in this case comes before the Authority pursuant to section 7105(a)(2)(E) of the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute (the Statute), and raises issued relating to the negotiability of the following Union proposal.

An employee called back to work outside his/her normal shift will be paid a minimum of four (4) hours and will only be required to work on the emergency for which he/she was called back.

Upon careful consideration of the entire record, including the parties' contentions, the Authority makes the following determination. Based on the language of the proposal and the uncontested allegation of the Agency, the Authority concludes that the first portion of the proposal would require that an employee who is called back to work be paid for a minimum of four hours regardless of whether the employee performs work for those four hours. In this respect, it is not materially different from Union Proposal 3 in International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 2080, AFL-CIO-CLC and Department of the Army, U.S. Corps of Engineer, Nashville, Tennessee, 10 FLRA No. 43 (1982). In that decision, the Authority determined that as 5 U.S.C. 5542(b)(1) with respect to GS employees, and 5 CFR 532.503(c) with respect to WG employees, set a maximum time of two hours that such employees may be paid callback overtime in the absence of the performance of work, a proposal providing for four hours of call back overtime pay was outside the duty to bargain. Thus, for the reasons detailed in U.S. Corps of Engineers, the first portion of the Union's proposal herein is outside the duty to bargain.

Further, as the second portion of the Union's proposal expressly would limit management's right to assign particular duties during callback overtime to duties related to the emergency situation necessitating the overtime, it directly interferes with the Agency's right "to assign work" pursuant to section 7106(a)(2)(B) of the Statute and is therefore outside the duty to bargain. International Association of Fire Fighters, Local F-61 and Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, 3 FLRA 437, 440-441 (1980).

Accordingly, pursuant to section 2424.10 of the Authority's Rules and Regulations, IT IS ORDERED that the Union's petition for review be, and it hereby is, dismissed. Issued, Washington, D.C., January 28, 1983 Ronald W. Haughton, Chairman Henry B. Frazier III, Member Leon B. Applewhaite, Member FEDERAL LABOR RELATIONS AUTHORITY