National Federation of Federal Employees, Local 1309 v. Department of the Interior et al. (526 U.S. 86)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided March 3, 1999 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 526 U.S. 86 · 119 S. Ct. 1003
- Decided
- March 3, 1999
- Term
- October Term 1998
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Breyer
- Issue area
- Unions
- Disposition
- Vacated and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice Breyer delivered the opinion of the Court. The Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute requires federal agencies and the unions that represent their employees to “meet and negotiate in good faith for the purposes of arriving at a collective bargaining agreement.” 5 U. S. C. § 7114(a)(4). We here consider whether that duty to bargain extends to a clause proposed by a union that would bind the parties to bargain midterm — that is, while the basic comprehensive labor contract is in effect — about subjects not included in that basic contract. We vacate a lower court holding that the statutory duty to bargain does not encompass midterm bargaining (or bargaining about midterm bargaining). We conclude that the Statute delegates to the Federal Labor Relations Authority the legal power to determine whether the parties must engage in midterm bargaining (or bargaining about that matter). We remand these cases so that the Authority may exercise that power. I Congress enacted the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute (Statute or FSLMRS) in 1978. See 5 U. S. C. §7101 et seq. Declaring that “labor organizations and collective bargaining in the civil service are in the public interest,” § 7101(a), the Statute grants federal agency employees the right to organize, provides for collective bargaining, and defines various unfair labor practices. See §§ 7114(a)(1),…
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