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Abstract

In determining the future for 175,000 excepted civil servants, the new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) human resources management (HRM) system must accommodate more than 20 different bargaining units representing many DHS employees. The DHS HRM design process provided for extensive consultation on numerous system options among management and labor representatives. But this consultation process under the Bush management-oriented administration is occurring in a dramatically different federal labormanagement environment than the partnership era of the Clinton administration. The article assesses the political challenges and opportunities involved and advocates four strategic change areas: (a) removing delay from the labor-management weapons arsenal, (b) reengineering the dispute process, (c) depoliticizing the labor relations and impasse regulators, and (d) rediscovering relationships in federal labor-management relations. These changes could reduce adversarialism and sustain the next era of federal labor-management relations in a federal government where excepted service is becoming the norm.

Keywords

labor-management partnerships labor-management dispute process federal labor-management relationships union consultation future of federal labor-management cooperation

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References

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Federal Labor-Management Relations for the Next Century—Or the Last?

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