Ohio Adjutant General's Dept. v. FLRA
The Supreme Court ruled that the Ohio National Guard must answer to the Federal Labor Relations Authority over disputes involving its civilian dual-status technicians, because those workers are legally employees of the federal government and the Guard acts as a federal agent when it employs them.
The decision means state National Guard units cannot opt out of federal labor law when hiring this category of workers, preserving the workers' right to union representation and collective bargaining backed by federal enforcement.
“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.”
The majority's explanation for why the Guard must be treated as a covered agency when employing these workers.
How it got here: The FLRA ruled against the Guard; the Sixth Circuit denied review; the Guard asked the Supreme Court to step in and the Court agreed to hear the case.
The Case in Depth
What happened
The Ohio National Guard employed a category of workers known as dual-status technicians — full-time civilian federal employees who must also hold National Guard membership and wear a uniform on the job. After a collective bargaining agreement with their union expired, the Guard declared it was no longer bound by federal labor law, stopped honoring the expired agreement, and cancelled union dues withholding for 89 workers. The union filed an unfair labor practice complaint with the Federal Labor Relations Authority.
The question before the Court
When a state National Guard unit hires and supervises a special class of full-time civilian federal employees who must also remain National Guard members, can the federal labor board step in to resolve their union disputes?
The Court's answer
Yes — the Federal Labor Relations Authority had jurisdiction to resolve this dispute. The Court ruled that when the Ohio National Guard acts as the employer of dual-status technicians, it is functioning as part of a covered federal agency and must comply with the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute (the federal law governing labor relations in the executive branch).
The Court's reasoning followed the chain of federal statutes: each dual-status technician is by law an employee of the Department of the Army or Air Force, both of which are components of the Department of Defense — a covered agency under the labor statute. The Guard's entire authority to hire these workers flows from a formal federal designation by the Secretary of the Army. Because the Guard acts on delegated federal authority when supervising these civilian workers, it steps into the role of a federal agency for those purposes and must honor the workers' right to union representation and collective bargaining.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Dual-status technicians at state National Guard units across the country retain the protection of federal labor law and can have workplace disputes — including over collective bargaining agreements and union dues — resolved by the Federal Labor Relations Authority. State Guard units that try to repudiate union contracts or stop dues withholding for these workers face federal enforcement, not just state-law remedies.
What changes now
The Ohio National Guard must comply with the FLRA's remedial order: follow the terms of the 2011 collective bargaining agreement, bargain in good faith going forward, and reinstate union dues withholding for the 89 affected workers. The decision is a final merits ruling. The Court explicitly declined to address the separate constitutional question of whether the FLRA can regulate Guard members acting in a purely military — rather than civilian — capacity, leaving that issue open for future cases.
What this does not decide
The Court expressly limited its holding to the unique class of civilian employees hired and supervised by state adjutants general under federal designation. It did not address whether the FLRA has authority over National Guard members acting in their military roles, or the constitutional question about regulating state militia members not employed in federal civilian service.
Concurrences and dissents
Dissent — Justice Alito
“Because petitioners are not actually federal agencies, a proposition that the Court does not dispute, the FLRA lacks jurisdiction to enter remedial orders against them.”The dissent's core objection: the majority's functionalist reasoning cannot substitute for the Guard actually being a federal agency under the statute's plain text.
Justice Alito argued the statute's text unambiguously answers the question: the FLRA has remedial jurisdiction only over 'agencies,' which the statute defines as Executive agencies — and none of the petitioners appears on the exhaustive list of Cabinet-level departments or qualifies as a government corporation or independent establishment. The majority sidesteps this clear answer by using functionalist language ('acting like,' 'exercising the authority of' an agency), but being designated to carry out an agency's duties does not transform the designee into the agency itself, any more than a designated subordinate official becomes a Cabinet Secretary. The saving clause and the Thompson Field administrative decision do not change this, because courts are free to find prior practice unlawful, and Thompson Field did not even address whether an adjutant general is an 'agency' subject to FLRA remedial orders.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court started with the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute's (FSLMRS) definition chain: the FLRA has jurisdiction over 'agencies,' which means Executive agencies, which includes the Department of Defense. Since each dual-status technician is by statute 'an employee of the Department of the Army or the Department of the Air Force' — both components of the Department of Defense — those workers are squarely within the statute's reach.
- Because the statute contemplates collective bargaining by 'components' and 'representatives' of covered agencies, the Court reasoned that entities exercising agency authority on behalf of a covered agency also fall within the statute's scope — not just the named Cabinet-level departments themselves.
- The Guard's authority to hire dual-status technicians is entirely delegated: Congress requires the Secretaries of the Army and Air Force to formally designate adjutants general to 'employ and administer' these workers, and a 1968 Army order carries out that designation. Because the Guard's hiring power comes solely from this federal delegation, it acts as the Secretaries' agent — exercising federal authority, subject to federal civil-service requirements — when supervising these workers.
- The Court also invoked the FSLMRS's saving clause (§ 7135(b)), which preserves administrative decisions made under the statute's predecessor, Executive Order No. 11491. A 1971 labor decision called Thompson Field had already concluded — under materially identical definitions — that a state adjutant general acts as an agent of the Army and Air Force Secretaries when employing dual-status technicians and is therefore bound by federal labor rules.
- Because Congress used the same definitions when it enacted the FSLMRS, the Court applied a standard presumption that Congress intended to carry forward the existing coverage — and found nothing in the text or history to overcome that presumption.