Reinstate the three 2018 federal labor relations orders
What the document says“All were revoked by the Biden Administration and should be reinstated by the next Administration, to include the immediate appointment of the FLRA General Counsel and reactivation of the Impasses Panel.”
The chapter lists Executive Orders 13836, 13837 and 13839, on renegotiating collective bargaining agreements to respect management rights, on official time, and on limiting grievances over removals and appraisals while prioritizing performance over seniority in reductions-in-force. It says all should be reinstated, together with immediate appointment of the FLRA General Counsel and reactivation of the Federal Service Impasses Panel.
What the document actually says“All were revoked by the Biden Administration and should be reinstated by the next Administration, to include the immediate appointment of the FLRA General Counsel and reactivation of the Impasses Panel.”
The Biden team canceled all three. The next president should bring them back. He should also fill the top lawyer job at the labor agency right away. And he should start up the panel that settles stuck fights.
Three orders from 2018 limited what federal unions could do. One told agencies to bargain harder with them. One stopped union work on government time. One cut back on protests over firings. President Biden undid all three. The book says all three should come back. It also says two labor jobs should be filled right away.
Exclusions From Federal Labor-Management Relations Programs
2025-03-27 · 90 FR 14553
Same subject, different instrument, and much wider. The chapter asked for three 2018 orders to be reinstated. Those orders regulated how agencies bargain, how official time is used, and how grievances are handled, while leaving bargaining rights in place. This order instead invokes the national security exclusion in 5 U.S.C. 7103(b) to remove listed agencies from the labor-management relations program altogether. Chapter 3 does not propose that mechanism. It does say Congress should consider whether public-sector unions are appropriate at all, which is a separate proposal indexed here.
The chapter asked for three 2018 orders to come back. Those set the terms of bargaining but kept the right to bargain. This order goes much wider. It pulls named agencies out of the labor law, which the chapter did not propose.
Further Exclusions From the Federal Labor- Management Relations Program
2025-08-28 · 90 FR 42683
Extends the approach taken in Executive Order 14251. The same distinction applies: the chapter asked for the three 2018 orders to be reinstated, not for agencies to be excluded from the program.
This order goes on with an earlier one. That order cut agencies out of the federal labor program. The chapter asked instead that three 2018 orders be brought back. Leaving agencies out is not the same thing.
2 agency rules
- Requests for Arbitration PanelsFederal Mediation and Conciliation Service · August 4, 2026
- Requests for Arbitration PanelsFederal Mediation and Conciliation Service · August 28, 2026
Each of these names the order above in its own summary, preamble or filing. That is a fact about the document, not a finding that it carries out this proposal: it is one step further away than the order is, and what it does about the proposal is a reading nobody has made here.