Memorandum on Employee-Management Cooperation in the Federal Government

Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies

Five years have passed since Executive Order 10988 established the policy and arrangements for cooperation between employee organizations and agency management in the Executive Branch. They have been productive years.

The Chairman of the Civil Service Commission advises me that the program has been beneficial to management and employees alike. Agencies report marked improvement in communication with employees and significant benefits in such areas as safety practices, tours of duty, health, general working conditions and grievance handling. Employee organizations have gained responsible status, stable and increasing membership, and representation rights that ensure substantial participation by employees in the improvement of personnel policies and practices that affect their well-being. This has been accomplished within the framework of public laws and policies that guard the public interest as the paramount consideration.

Today, over one million Federal employees have exclusive representation by employee organizations of their choice and the right to negotiate agreements with agency management. Many thousands more belong to organizations which have been accorded formal recognition and rights of consultation.

The improvements in employee-management relations achieved during this period are a credit to responsible agency officials and union leaders and a tribute to the wisdom of the 1961 task force which framed the Order. Nevertheless, as the program has matured and grown there is increasing evidence that some of the arrangements devised for a fledgling operation are no longer suitable. The Civil Service Commission has received from both the Federal agencies and from employee organizations a number of suggestions for changes in the program.

The time has come for a public review of our five years of experience under Executive Order 10988--what the program has accomplished and where it is deficient--and for consideration of any adjustments needed now to ensure its continued vitality in the public interest.

Accordingly, I am designating a review committee for this purpose. The committee, which will be chaired by the Secretary of Labor, shall be made up of the following members: Robert S. McNamara, Secretary of Defense; Lawrence F. O'Brien, Postmaster General; Charles L. Schultze, Director of the Budget; John W. Macy, Jr., Chairman of the Civil Service Commission; Joseph A. Califano, Jr., Special Assistant to the President.

In the course of this review of the Federal employee-management relations program employees and employee organization representatives, department and agency officials, experts in labor-management relations, and interested groups and citizens shall be given an opportunity to present their views for the consideration of the review committee.

I am asking the review committee to proceed immediately with its study and to report to me its findings and recommendations as soon as practicable.

All department and agency heads are urged to cooperate fully with the review committee in the accomplishment of this study.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON