From: Federal News Network
“EPA Senior Labor Attorney Robert Coomber, in a June 24 email to agency and AFGE officials, said the agency had unsuccessfully attempted to bring AFGE to the bargaining table to negotiate a new Master Collective Bargaining Agreement for more than a year. But AFGE Local 238 officials disagreed with the scope of the negotiations, adding that the agency wanted “to increase the number of articles to be reopened” for discussion.
Tim Whitehouse, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, and a former EPA enforcement attorney, said the proposal reflects unilateral collective bargain proposals introduced at other agencies in which “there is no bargaining, only ultimatums. Under these rules, important safeguards against political purges within the civil service would be removed,” Whitehouse said in a statement.”
