Extended Official Time and Leave Without Pay for Union Representative

An advance decision was requested with regard to the legality of a provision in a labor-management agreement which would allow a government employee to serve full time as a union official for the 3-year term of the agreement and receive one-half of his government salary during that period. The agreement provision commiting the agency to grant leave without pay for one-half of each day during the period is valid. However, the agency's authority to allocate employee's duties is not sufficiently broad to permit diversion of the employee from his official position for an extended period, and the official time provision of the agreement is, therefore, invalid and may not be implemented. In the absence of specific statutory authority, an agency may not permit an individual employee to devote more than 160 hours of official time per year to the performance of union representational duties.