Basic rules on design and assignment of offices/laboratories/employee space:
  1. Governing Rule: Proposals relating to the office environment including size and assignment are at the very heart of the traditional meaning of "conditions of employment" and are mandatory subjects of bargaining.

  2. Design:

    1. To the extent that an agency has discretion in design or recommendation for design and to the extent that union design requests relate to working conditions, union proposals are negotiable.

    2. When management can demonstrate that a proposal adversely affects its methods and means of accomplishing agency work, proposals that impact the layout of work may become nonnegotiable.

    3. For an agency’s choice of means, e.g. floor plan design, assignment plan, etc. to be sustained it must be used to attain or make more likely the attainment of a desired end, or be used to accomplish or further the performance of its work.

  3. Office Size: Negotiable, subject to the extent that proposals are not inconsistent with law, Government-wide rule or regulation

    1. Grade level: GSA regulations do not prescribe either a mandatory or maximum square footage figure per grade level.

    2. Agency has the burden to show that there is a relationship between office size and the performance of agency work.

  4. Choice of offices

    1. Agency has the burden of persuasion on:

      1. Direct and integral relationship between agency office assignment plan and the accomplishment of the agency’s mission.

      2. Union’s proposal would clearly and directly interfere with the mission-related purposes of the agency’s office assignment plan.

    2. Functional basis for assignment controls so long as agency can establish relationship between assignment of work space and accomplishment, performance and furtherance of agency’s work.
Posted: December 1, 2000