96
Opinion of the Court
be reflected in the Statute, particularly when at least one treatise suggested at the time that federal labor relations practice was to the contrary. See H. Robinson, Negotiability in the Federal Sector 10-11, and n. 9 (1981) (stating that under the Executive Order both unions and agencies had a continuing duty to bargain through the term of a basic labor contract).
The Agency also points to a Senate Report in support of its interpretation of the Statute. That Report speaks of the parties' "mutual duty to bargain" with respect to (1) "changes in established personnel policies proposed by management," and (2) "negotiable proposals initiated by either the agency or [the union] . . . in the context of negotiations leading to a basic collective bargaining agreement." S. Rep. No. 95-969, p. 104 (1978) (emphasis added). This Report, however, concerns a bill that contains language similar to the language before us but was not enacted into law. According to the D. C. Circuit, at least, any distinction between basic and midterm bargaining that is indicated by this passage "did not survive the rejection by Congress of the Senate's restrictive view of the rights of labor and the importance of collective bargaining." NTEU, 810 F. 2d, at 298. In any event, the Report's list of possible occasions for collective bargaining does not purport to be an exclusive list; it does not say that the Statute was understood to exclude mid-term bargaining; and any such implication is simply too distant to control our reading of the Statute.
Fourth, the Agency and the Fourth Circuit contend that the "management rights" provision of the Statute, 5 U. S. C. § 7106, does authorize limited midterm bargaining in respect to certain matters (not here at issue), and that by negative implication it denies permission to bargain midterm in respect to any others. See, e. g., SSA, supra, at 1284 ("The inclusion of a specific duty of midterm effects bargaining . . . suggests the inadvisability of reading a more general duty into the statute"). Our examination of that provision,
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