FLRA CHANGES POLICY ON POSTINGS VERSUS E-MAILS

FLRA’s newest decision announced that in the future it will typically adopt a union request  that an agency guilty of a ULP be required to  send all involved employees an e-mail announcing its guilt and promising to not violate the law again.  In the past, the Authority would only order that in extraordinary or non-traditional cases, e.g., repeated serious violations by an agency.  However, in AFGE 67 FLRA 221 it changed its mind largely because wall-mounted bulletin boards, the traditional location of FLRA paper-postings,  have “… gone the way of the telephone-message pad and the interoffice envelope .”  The Authority ended its decision by emphasizing three points.

“First, this change does not alter the time-tested requirement for parties to continue the physical posting of paper notices in addition to any electronic posting that may be required. Maintaining the requirement for the posting of paper notices is significant because not all employees have access to the internet and may not be comfortable relying on email communications. Second, this change will apply equally to both agencies and unions that have been found to have engaged in ULPs. And third, this change does not broaden the number of bargaining-unit employees or work units that must be notified in the event that a posting is required. Rather, electronic notices will have the same scope as notices posted by traditional means; that is, distribution will be limited, to the extent practicable, to the location(s) where the ULPs occurred. As with physical postings, electronic notices will extend beyond the location where the violation occurred only ‘where the violation involve[s] an issue of import to [employees] who do not work at the site where the violations occurred.’”