FMA NATIONAL PRESIDENT DARRYL PERKINSON APPEARS ON FEDERAL NEWS RADIO TO DISCUSS NEW LABOR-MANAGEMENT COUNCIL - December 15, 2009

Forum works to improve management-labor relations

FMA National President Darryl Perkinson appeared on The Federal Drive to share his perspective on the upcoming Labor-Management Council meetings ordered by President Obama.

Click here to listen.

Below is an accompanying article that complements Perkinson's interview.

Forum works to improve management-labor relations

By Suzanne Kubota Senior Internet Editor FederalNewsRadio.com December 15, 2009

In signing the Executive Order titled "Creating Labor-Management Forums To Improve Delivery of Government Services", the President did more than open up a dialogue between management and unions. He also seems to have started healing a wound.

FederalNewsRadio spoke with Darryl Perkinson, president of the Federal Managers Association, and Colleen Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) about the labor-management forums.

Perkinson told the Federal Drive he's looking forward to getting "labor and management together at the table to discuss issues that will benefit all civil servants and all federal employees."

A big part of that benefit, said Perkinson, will be the ability to start communication "from the national perspective," about those issues that impact all federal employees, "and then we can drive it to the local forum level with the activities and agencies such that there will be a discussion there with first and second line supervisors as well as their employees on what things we need to work on and the big ticket items that will make us be more productive for the citizens of the United States."

Kelley told the Daily Debrief she welcomes the forums as well, saying it will be a nice change from the tone set during the last nine years, when she said communication "has been set up to be a process that has worked more through grievances and litigation than through trying to solve problems at the lowest possible level."

Perkinson acknowledged the biggest problems the government faces are handled well below the appointee level.

"The people who have the answers to some of the complicated questions and some of the criticisms we get at the agency level are those people who work it every day. They know what to do to become more efficient. We need to pay more attention to them and by establishing these forums to have those conversations, I think that could be a result."

While Kelley agreed that collaboration is the answer, "and always did think that's what it should be about," she said just setting up the forums and talking about working together won't be enough to improve performance.

"When you think about the number of layers in the agencies and how to get that tone, that attitude, that way of working together from the top all the way down to the frontlines which is where it is really so desperately needed, that's where the hard work is going to come in."

Perkinson said the new Council will be an exploration, as well as a collaboration.

"What are we, at the end of the day, going to do that is the best to serve the American public and how do we get there and how do we make our employees the most productive they can be in order to carry out our mission? And I'm hoping that's the end in mind we all come to the table with."

Both OPM director John Berry and Jeffrey Zients, Federal Chief Performance Officer and Deputy Director for Management at OMB have released statements praising the new order.

To view this article in its original format, please visit Federal News Radio at: http://www.federalnewsradio.com/index.php?nid=14 and scroll halfway down the page.