On March 27, 2025, the Office of Personnel Management issued a guidance memorandum on cancellation of labor-management forums, implementing a recent executive order.  These moves are the latest step in the on-again, off-again history of labor management forums in federal government. 

As defined in Executive Order 14119, a labor-management forum is “a nonadversarial forum for managers, employees, and employees’ union representatives to discuss how Federal Government operations can promote satisfactory labor relations and improve the productivity and effectiveness of the Federal Government.”  As noted in the same executive order, these forums were designed to “allow employees and their union representatives to have pre-decisional involvement in workplace matters,” including “discussions with management for the development of joint solutions to workplace challenges.”  

The labor-management forum program has been established and abolished repeatedly over the course of the last few Administrations. These forums were first created by Executive Order 13522 in 2009.  In September 2017, President Trump in his first term revoked E.O. 13522 via Executive Order 13812.  President Biden revoked E.O. 13812 and reinstated the labor-management forums via E.O. 14119 in March 2024.  The new executive order now revokes E.O. 14119, along with revoking seventeen other executive orders and other presidential actions.  It, however, did not specify any implementation mechanics for the ramifications of that invocation concerning labor-management forums, resulting in OPM’s new guidance memorandum. 

Under the guidance memorandum, agencies are directed to report back to OPM by April 30, 2025 regarding what agency policies and collective bargaining agreement provisions are in place concerning labor-management forums, setting a timeline for each agency  “to abolish labor-management forums, committees, and councils, and discontinue pre-decisional involvement of labor unions and employees in agency matters,” and describing any implementation efforts for the various revocations specified in the new executive order. 

If you are a federal employee or federal employee labor union and wish to discuss your rights, consider contacting Gilbert Employment Law to request an initial consultation.