The White House will revive labor-management partnerships under an executive order signed today by President Barack Obama.

The order creates a national labor-management council, composed of top labor and Obama administration officials, which will collaborate on how to make the government run better. The council will be chaired by the deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget and the director of the Office of Personnel Management; it also includes the presidents of several major labor unions and management associations. Individual departments and agencies are also required to create their own labor-management forums.

Labor unions were quick to praise the move.

"This executive order, establishing labor-management forums, sends a positive message of change to both federal workers and managers, and represents a welcome, more productive way of doing business that will benefit taxpayers and our country," said Colleen Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union.

But the order didn't go as far as unions hoped to establish collective bargaining rights. It doesn't require agencies to bargain over "permissive issues," like employee grading. Instead, it requires the new national council to create a handful of pilot programs; those programs will be evaluated within 18 months, and could be expanded if they're successful.

"The administration's decision not to make bargaining mandatory is of course a disappointment," said John Gage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees. "But our locals are ready to develop good relationships with their management counterparts."

Labor-management partnerships were used during the Clinton administration; union leaders say they provided an effective forum for their employees to address grievances. But former President George W. Bush terminated the programs in a 2001 executive order.

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