Are Federal Labor‐Management Partnerships Decreasing Conflict? Evidence from the Last Eight Years of Reported Data

• Published date: 01 December 2015
• Date: 01 December 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/crq.21144
• Author: Ashley M. Alteri

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© 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. and the Association for Confl ict Resolution

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) • DOI: 10.1002/crq.21144

Are Federal Labor-Management Partnerships

Decreasing Con ict? Evidence from the Last Eight

Years of Reported Data

Ashley M. Alteri

In December 2009, President Obama signed Executive Order 13522,

initiating a formal period during which the federal government

has been acting under a declared labor-management partnership.

Researchers and practitioners believe these partnerships can result in

substantial benefi ts to the organization. However, this article’s analy-

sis of an original data set containing agency data on labor-manage-

ment collaboration and confl ict over time indicates that partnerships

are not associated with changes in confl ict. Instead, participation in

labor-management pilot projects weakly predicts a decrease in confl ict.

Qualitative data from union offi cials suggest that this fi nding could

be because the partnerships do not represent true labor-management

collaboration.

On January 19, 1962, President Kennedy issued Executive Order

10988 that formally granted federal employees the right to bargain

collectively. Subsequent presidents extended this executive order, which

was codifi ed into the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 (Tobias 2013).

Although the intent was to promote an environment of cooperation

between unions and management, the history between the federal labor-

management relations has been largely contentious (Tobias 2013). Mod-

ern labor-management partnerships emerged in an eff ort to “chang[e] the

nature of federal labor-management relations so that managers, employees,

and employees’ elected union representatives [can] serve as partners . . .

[in] design[ing] and implement[ing] comprehensive changes necessary to

reform government” (Executive Order 12781 1993).

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On December 9, 2009, President Obama continued this tradition

when he signed Executive Order 13522, which established “a coopera-

tive and productive form of labor-management relations throughout the

executive branch.”  is initiated a formal period during which the federal

government has been acting under a declared labor-management partner-

ship. Labor-management partnerships are a “form of labor management

relationship that aff ords workers and unions strong participation in a

broad range of decisions from the top to the bottom of the organization”

(Kochan et al. 2008, as cited in Masters, Merchant, and Tobias 2010, 19).

Labor-management partnerships have alternately been instituted or

expressly repealed by presidential executive order since 1962 when Presi-

dent Kennedy issued Executive Order 10988, “Employee-Management

Cooperation in the Federal Sector.”  is order granted federal employees

the right to bargain collectively and encouraged labor and management to

cooperate in this process. Orders are generally issued for a period of two

years and are then either extended if the issuing president remains in offi ce

or revoked if a new president assumes the offi ce (Offi ce of Personnel Man-

agement [OPM] 2014b). When an executive order that mandates labor-

management partnerships is in place, federal agencies in the executive

branch are required to establish some type of collaborative forum between

the union and management. However, when the executive order is revoked

and agencies are no longer required to institute labor-management part-

nerships, they may still elect to do so voluntarily.

While some federal agencies already had a declared labor-management

partnership in place prior to President Obama’s executive order, most

were required to form new committees following this directive (National

Council on Federal Labor-Management Relations [NCFLMR] 2010c).

However, agencies were not forming these committees with a clean slate.

 e mandated partnerships were being built on the often contentious his-

tory of the parties. While an executive order could require representatives

of management to meet and confer, the executive order could not remedy

an antagonistic relationship between the parties or force either party to

approach negotiations positively.

As the title of President Kennedy’s executive order suggests, the primary

goal of labor-management partnerships is to increase the level of collabora-

tion between unions and management. Researchers and practitioners alike

believe that these partnerships can result in substantial benefi ts to the orga-

nization (Gill 2009; Masters 2001; Masters, Albright, and Eplion 2006).

However, the research examining these partnerships has yielded mixed