DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION SERVICE U.S. BORDER PATROL LAREDO, TEXAS and AMERICAN FEDERATION OF GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES, LOCAL 2455, AFL-CIO

WASHINGTON, D.C.

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION SERVICE U.S. BORDER PATROL LAREDO, TEXAS Respondent and AMERICAN FEDERATION OF GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES, LOCAL 2455, AFL-CIO Charging Party	Case No. DA-CA-00879

Tiffany A. Former For the General Counsel Before: GARVIN LEE OLIVER Administrative Law Judge

On November 30, 2000, the Regional Director of theDallas Region of the Federal Labor Relations Authority issued a Complaint and Notice of Hearing which was duly served by certified mail on a designated representative of the Respondent. The Complaint alleged that the Respondent violated section 7116(a)(1) and (5) of the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute (the Statute), 5 U.S.C. § 7116(a)(1) and (5), by changing the location of the employee break/conference room in the Laredo Border Patrol Sector Anti-Smuggling Unit Building without providing the Charging Party (the Union), with notice and an opportunity to negotiate over the change to the extent required by the Statute. A hearing was scheduled for February 9, 2001.

The Complaint specifically advised the Respondent that an answer must be filed with this office by December 26, 2000 and that "[i]f Respondent does not file an answer, the Authority will find that Respondent has admitted each allegation. See 5 C.F.R. § 2423.60(b)." The Respondent did not file an answer, either in person or by mail, within the required period or at any time thereafter. Accordingly, the Respondent has admitted all allegations of the complaint. Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Asheville, North Carolina, 51 FLRA 1572, 1594 (1996).

On January 5, 2001 Counsel for the General Counsel filed a Motion for Summary Judgment and requested a remedy requiring the Respondent to return to the status quo. Respondent failed to file a response to the motion for summary judgement within the time period provided for in the Regulations, 5 C.F.R. § 2423.27(b) and 2429.22, or at any time to date.

Based on the allegations of the Complaint, the admissions by operation of section 2423.20(b) of the Authority's Rules and Regulations, and all the pleadings, it appears that there are no genuine issues of material fact and that the General Counsel is entitled to Summary Judgment as a matter of law. Accordingly, I make the following findings of fact, conclusions of law, and recommendations.

The Respondent, Department of Justice, Immigration and Naturalization Service, U.S. Border Patrol, Laredo, Texas, is an agency under 5 U.S.C. § 7103(a)(3).

The American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO (AFGE), is a labor organization under 5 U.S.C. § 7103(a)(4) and is the exclusive representative of a unit of employees appropriate for collective bargaining at the U.S. Border Patrol. The American Federation of Government Employees, Local 2455 (the Union), is an agent of AFGE for the purpose of representing employees of Respondent within the unit.

On or about June 2000 the Respondent, through Joe Martinez, Supervisory Special Agent, a supervisor or management official under 5 U.S.C. § 7103(a)(10) and (11), changed the location of the employee break/conference room in the Laredo Border Patrol Sector Anti-Smuggling Unit Building.

The Respondent implemented the change without providing the Union with notice and an opportunity to negotiate over the change to the extent required by the Statute.

Before implementing a change in conditions of employment affecting bargaining unit employees, an agency is required to provide the exclusive representative with notice of, and an opportunity to bargain over, those aspects of the change that are within the duty to bargain. See Federal Bureau of Prisons, Federal Correctional Institution, Bastrop, Texas,

55 FLRA 848, 852 (1999)(FCI, Bastrop); U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Memphis District, Memphis, Tennessee, 53 FLRA 79, 81 (1997). Absent a waiver of bargaining rights, the mutual obligation to bargain must be satisfied before changes in conditions of employment are implemented. Id.; National Weather Service Employees Organization and U.S. Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Weather Service, 37 FLRA 392, 395 (1990).

The nature of the change in conditions of employment that management proposes to make dictates the extent of its duty to bargain. If the change is substantively negotiable, a union may bargain over the actual decision whether the change should be made. See, e.g., Department of the Navy, Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Bremerton, Washington, 35 FLRA 153, 155 (1990). If the decision to change a condition of employment constitutes the exercise of a management right under section 7106 of the Statute, the substance of the decision to make the change is not negotiable, but the agency is nonetheless obligated to bargain over the impact and implementation of that decision if the resulting change will have more than a de minimis effect on conditions of employment. See Department of Health and Human Services, Social Security Administration, 24 FLRA 403, 407-08 (1986). In such circumstan