REOPENER CLAUSE.   Provisions in the CBA specifying the conditions under which one or either party can reopen for renegotiation the agreement or designated parts of the agreement. Although some agreements provide for mutual consent reopeners, such reopeners are unnecessary as the parties can of course agree to reopen and renegotiate their agreement at any time, notwithstanding the contents of the agreement. The purpose of a reopener is to enable one party to compel the other party to renegotiate the provisions covered by the reopener.

REPRESENTATION ELECTION.   Secret-ballot election to determine whether the employees in an appropriate unit shall have a union as their exclusive representative. § 7111(a)

REPRESENTATIONAL FUNCTIONS.   Activities performed by union representatives on behalf of the employees for whom the union is the exclusive representative regarding their conditions of employment. It includes, among other things, negotiating and policing the terms of the agreement, being present at (1) formal discussions and, upon employee request, (2) Weingarten examinations.

REPRESENTATION ISSUES.   Issues related to how a union gains or loses exclusive recognition for a bargaining unit, determining whether a proposed unit of employees is appropriate for the purposes of exclusive recognition, and determining the unit status of various employees. See § § 7111 and 7112.

REPUDIATION OF AGREEMENT.   See last paragraph under AGREEMENT, NEGOTIATED.

RETAIN EMPLOYEES.   A right reserved to management by § 7106(a)(2)(A). Although the rights to layoff and retain appear to be opposite sides of the same coin, FLRA rarely mentions the right to retain when invoking the right to layoff to find nonnegotiable proposals dealing with RIFs and furloughs.