November 2, 2010

SUMMARY:  NTEU and FDIC have been released from mediation and will seek the assistance of the Federal Service Impasses Panel. 

NTEU and FDIC met again last week for a final, three-day session with a federal mediator.  The session was productive but the parties remained far apart on many significant articles. 

The parties reached tentative agreement on Article 36 (Health and Safety), Article 37 (Disabled Employees), Article 48 (Arbitration), and Article 49 (Expedited Arbitration).  In addition, the parties appeared to close the gap on several other articles, including Dues Withholding (Article 55), Reassignment (Article 15), and Work Schedules (Article 19).  On other matters, the FDIC continued to take a regressive position on important issues.  For example, the agency continues to seek to exclude matters from the grievance procedure
(Article 47), including counseling and warning letters.  The FDIC contends that counseling and warning letters are currently excluded as preliminary warnings.  NTEU has, all along, argued that because both may be relied upon in subsequent proposed disciplinary or performance-based actions, they are not and should not be excluded from the grievance procedure.  In addition, NTEU continued to press to allow employees the opportunity to respond in writing and have the response attached to the warning and counseling letters; require that they be destroyed after six months and that FDIC inform employees once they are destroyed; and preclude the agency from relying upon them in any subsequent action, unless prior to their destruction, they are relied upon to support an action.    

While NTEU and FDIC made some progress in narrowing the disputes in several of the remaining articles, it was clear to the federal mediator that the parties have essentially exhausted voluntary efforts to reach agreement with the mediator’s assistance, and are thus at impasse.  Therefore, the mediator released the parties, so they could proceed to the next phase of the statutory process, which is to seek the assistance of the Federal Service Impasses Panel (FSIP). 

NTEU will soon file a request for assistance with the FSIP.  Once that occurs, the FSIP will conduct an investigation into the dispute and likely will assert jurisdiction over this impasse and order a process for its resolution.