A collective bargaining agreement (CBA). CBAs take many forms, e.g., term agreements, midterm agreements, memoranda of understanding (MOU), basic agreements, supplemental agreements, oral agreements, side agreements, and past practices. Section 7103(a)(9) defines a collective bargaining agreement as "an agreement entered into as a result of collective bargaining pursuant to the provisions of this chapter."
CBAs set forth some of the conditions of employment of unitemployees, various rights and obligations of the parties to the agreement (i.e., the exclusive representative and the activity or agency), the negotiated grievance procedure, dues withholding provisions, reopeners, as well as the duration of the agreement. CBAs cannot contain provisionsthat interfere with management rights (unless they are § 7106(b)(3) "appropriate arrangements", or § 7106(b)(1) permissive subjects of bargaining" on which management has "elected" to bargain), nor evenrestate agency or Governmentwide regulations that interfere with (i.e., place restrictions on the exercise of) management rights, for that would give them an existence independent of the regulations. (See, e.g., 19 FLRA No. 24, #3(RIF regulations) and 47 FLRA No. 79, #1(performance regulations)). However, see38 FLRA No. 89, #1, where the Authority held that a proposal requiring the agency to establish and administer a drug testing program in accordance with the Constitution, laws, rules, regulations, and the contract, interfered with the right to determine internal security practices, but still was negotiable because it was an appropriate arrangement under § 7106(b)(3).
Since the most important conditions of employment for most employees covered by the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute are established by laws and regulations, many of the conditions of employment one finds in CBAs are paraphrases, restatements, and/or selected quotations of those laws and regulations and, to the extent the laws and regulations give the agency discretion over the matter and the matter is otherwise negotiable (e.g., not in conflict with management rights), agreed-upon supplements to those laws and regulations. Negotiated agreements are subject to agency head review for legal sufficiency. § 7114(c)(1).
Refusing to put an agreement into writing is a unfair labor practice(ULP). § 7103(a)(12). Although disputes over the meaning and application of the CBA normally are processed through the agreement's grievance-arbitration procedures, some types of violations can also be processed by the Authority under its unfair labor practice procedures. See, e.g., 21 FLRA No. 117;22 FLRA No. 25; compare with 15 FLRA No. 132. See 51 FLRA No. 72 for a description of the analytical framework that FLRA uses to determine whether there has been a repudiation of the agreement--i.e., whether (1) the breach was clear and patent and (2) the provision breached went to the heart of the agreement. Also see 52 FLRA Nos. 22 and 42. Under section 7116(d), "issues which can be raised under a grievance procedure may, in the discretion of the aggrieved party, be raised under the grievance procedure or as an unfair labor practice under [ § 7116], but not under both procedures." See 52 FLRA No. 62 (grievance barred because the issue was the same as in an earlier-filed ULP charge) and compare with52 FLRA No. 37(no bar because the unfair labor practice issue is not the same as the negotiated grievance procedure issue).