A right reserved to management by § 7106(a)(2)(A). This right, often confused with the § 7106(a)(2)(B)right to assign work, relates to the assignment of employees to positions, shifts, and locations. This right includes discretion to determine "the personnel requirements of the work of the position, i.e., the qualifications and skills needed to do the work, as well as such job-related individual characteristics as judgment and reliability." 2 FLRA No. 77. It also includes discretion to determine the duration of the assignment. 28 FLRA No. 66, #5.
The use of seniority procedures in selecting employees for assignments to shifts, details, etc., doesn't normally interfere with the right to assign employees where the seniority criteria are applied to employees that management has already determined are qualified to perform the work. See, in this connection, 44 FLRA No. 1, #1(assignment of overtime), 41 FLRA No. 58(assignment to details), 30 FLRA No. 80, #1 (assignment to shifts), and 25 F 9, #4(shifts, work areas).
A right reserved to management by § 7106(a)(2)(B). This right, often confused with the § 7106(a)(2)(A) right to assign employees, relates to the assignment of work to employees or positions. In 3 FLRA No. 119--affirmed by the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals (D.C. Circuit) in National Treasury Employees Union v. Federal Labor Relations Authority, 691 F.2d 553 (1982)--the Authority said the following about this right:
The right to assign work to employees or positions. . . is composed of two discretionary elements: (1) the particular duties and work to be assigned, and (2) the particular employees to whom or positions to which it will be assigned. Furthermore, management discretion in this regard includes the right to assign general continuing duties, to make specific work assignments to employees, to determine when such assignments will occur and to determine when the work which has been assigned will be performed. [3 FLRA at 775.]
The right to assign work includes discretion to determine who (6 FLRA No. 106)is to perform the work, the kind (29 FLRA No. 61) and amount (16 FLRA No. 27, #3) of work to be performed, the manner (12 FLRA No. 26) in which it is to be performed, as well as when (32 FLRA No. 146, #12) it is to be performed. It also includes "[t]he right to determine the particular qualifications and skills needed to perform the work and to make judgments as to whether a particular employee meets those qualifications."32 FLRA No. 144, #1. When combined with the section 7106(a)(2)(A) right to direct employees, it reserves to management the right to establish performance standards (13 FLRA No. 50), the number of rating levels (13 FLRA No. 96), and the identity of performance elements (13 FLRA No. 49).
In 56 FLRA No. 134, the Authority said that it "has long held that proposals that set forth a method or criteria for assignment, including seniority, do not affect the right to assign work where management has determined that employees are 'equally qualified' for an assignment to a particular position."
Work jurisdiction proposals, such as proposals barring the agency from assigning work performed by unit employees to employees outside the unit, normally interfere the right to assign work. (See, e.g., 56 FLRA No. 96, which also discusses the conditions under which such a proposal, if it applies only to certain prevailing rate employees, might nonetheless be negotiable.)