Page:Ohio Adjutant General's Department v. FLRA.pdf/11

8 General Order 85, ¶3. Accordingly, dual-status technicians are ultimately employees of the Secretaries of the Army and the Air Force, and petitioners are the Secretaries’ designees for purposes of dual-status technician employment. Should a state adjutant general wish to employ federal dual-status technicians, he must do so pursuant to delegated federal authority and subject to federal civil-service requirements. See 5 U. S. C. §2105(a)(1)(F). Indeed, it would be passing strange if dual-status technicians, who qualify as employees under the Statute, were supervised by an entity not required to safeguard the rights guaranteed employees under the Statute. §§7102 (providing that “each employee shall be protected in the exercise of” his right to join or refrain from joining a labor association) and 7103(a)(2)(A) (defining an “ ‘employee’ ” as “an individual … employed in an agency”). The case caption in this matter reflects the Guard’s federal function with respect to hiring dual-status technicians; before the FLRA, the case proceeded against the “U. S. Department of Defense, Ohio National Guard,” with the Adjutant General and the Adjutant General’s Department joining the suit later as intervenors. App. 16.

Petitioners contend that federalism concerns require us to read the Statute to exempt them from the FLRA’s jurisdiction. But, the FLRA enforces the rights and obligations of federal civilian employees and their agency employers. Because adjutants general act on behalf of an agency of the Federal Government with respect to their supervision of civilian technicians, their actions in that capacity do not implicate the balance between federal and state powers. See 10 U. S. C. §10216(a); 32 U. S. C. §709(e).

The evolution of federal agency-employee relations law and the text of 5 U. S. C. §7135(b), which functions as the Statute’s saving clause, lend further support to the FLRA’s exercise of authority over the Guard. Before the FSLMRS