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60 FLRA No. 22
U. S. Dept. of Justice, Federal Bureau of Prisons, Federal Detention Center Houston, Texas and AFGE, Local 1030 Council of Prison Locals, AFL-CIO Case No. DA-CA-02-0242 (Decided July 15, 2004)
The Judge found that the Respondent violated § 7116(a)(1), (5), and (8) of the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute by failing to provide information requested by the Union under § 7114(b)(4) of the Statute in connection with disciplinary actions against two employees. The Authority denied the Respondent's exceptions and adopted the Judge's findings, conclusions, and recommended order.
Under § 7114(b)(4)(B) of the Statute, an agency must furnish information to a union, upon request, and to the extent not prohibited by law, if, the information is necessary for full and proper discussion, understanding, and negotiation of subjects within the scope of collective bargaining. To demonstrate that information is necessary a union must establish a particularized need for the information by articulating, with specificity, why it needs it, the uses to which the union will put the information, and the connection between those uses and the union's representational responsibilities under the Statute. The union's responsibility for articulating its interests in the requested information requires more than a conclusory assertion and must permit an agency to make a reasoned judgment as to whether the disclosure of the information is required under the Statute. The agency is responsible for establishing any countervailing anti-disclosure interests and, like the union, must do so in more than a conclusory way. Such interests must be raised at or near the time of the union's request. In this case, the Judge found, and the Respondent did not dispute, that the Union established a particularized need for the SIS Manual. The Respondent, however, argued that the Judge erred in failing to find that its countervailing interest in security outweighed the Union's particularized need for the SIS Manual.
The Authority found that the Respondent's explanation of its countervailing security interest was general and conclusory. As such, even assuming that the claimed countervailing interest was raised in response to the Union's request for the SIS Manual, it was not sufficient to outweigh the Union's demonstration of a particularized need for the information. The Authority denied the Respondent's exception. The Respondent also argued that disclosure of the investigatory files was barred by the Privacy Act. The Authority denied the Respondent's exception and sustained the Judge's order requiring the Respondent to provide those files to the Union.