Cite as: 526 U. S. 86 (1999)
Opinion of the Court
Of particular relevance here, the Statute requires a federal agency employer to "meet" with the employees' collective-bargaining representative and to "negotiate in good faith for the purposes of arriving at a collective bargaining agreement." § 7114(a)(4). The Courts of Appeals disagree about whether, or the extent to which, this good-faith-bargaining requirement extends to midterm bargaining. Suppose, for example, that the federal agency and the union negotiate a basic 5-year contract. In the third year a matter arises that the contract does not address. If the union seeks negotiations about the matter, does the Statute require the agency to bargain then and there, or can the agency wait for basic contract renewal negotiations? Does it matter whether the basic contract itself contains a "zipper clause" expressly forbidding such bargaining? Does it matter whether the basic contract itself contains a clause expressly permitting mid-term bargaining? Can the parties insist upon bargaining endterm (that is, during the negotiations over adopting or renewing a basic labor contract) about whether to include one or the other such clauses in the basic contract itself?
In 1985 the Authority began to answer some of these questions. It considered a union's effort to force midterm negotiations about a matter the basic labor contract did not address, and it held that the Statute did not require the agency to bargain. Internal Revenue Service, 17 F. L. R. A. 731 (1985) (IRS I).
The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, however, set aside the Authority's ruling. The court held that in light of the intent and purpose of the Statute, it must be read to require midterm bargaining, inasmuch as it did not create any distinction between bargaining at the end of a labor contract's term and bargaining during that term. National Treasury Employees Union v. FLRA, 810 F. 2d 295 (1987) (NTEU). On remand the Authority reversed its earlier position. Internal Revenue Service, 29 F. L. R. A.
89
Page: Index Previous 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007