Board of Contract Appeals

                 General Services Administration

                      Washington, D.C. 20405





                                                 



                          April 24, 2002

                                                 





                         GSBCA 15813-TRAV





               In the Matter of REBECCA L. MOORMAN





     Rebecca L. Moorman, Amherst, NY, Claimant.



     Michael D. Bunker, Senior Attorney, United States Customs Service, Buffalo, NY,

appearing for Department of the Treasury.



DANIELS, Board Judge (Chairman).



     Rebecca L. Moorman is a customs import specialist employed by the United States

Customs Service at the Port of Buffalo, New York.  Ms. Moorman has asked the Board to

review the denial by her Port Director of her request for reimbursement of expenses she

incurred in traveling between rotational assignments.



     Because Ms. Moorman noted that her chapter of the National Treasury Employees

Union (NTEU) has been involved in the dispute over reimbursement of her travel expenses,

we asked the employee and the agency to address the question of our jurisdiction to settle this

claim.  As we noted in a letter to the parties, the Civil Service Reform Act provides that

generally, collective bargaining agreements between unions and agency management are to

provide procedures for the settlement of grievances, and that with limited exceptions, the

procedures set out in such an agreement "shall be the exclusive administrative procedures for

resolving grievances which fall within its coverage."  5 U.S.C.   7121(a)(1) (2000).  The

Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has consistently held that this law means that if a

matter is arguably entrusted to a grievance procedure, no review outside that procedure may

take place unless the parties to the agreement have explicitly and unambiguously excluded

that matter from the procedure.  Dunklebarger v. Merit Systems Protection Board, 130 F.3d

1476 (Fed. Cir. 1997); Muniz v. United States, 972 F.2d 1304 (Fed. Cir. 1992); Carter v.

Gibbs, 909 F.2d 1452 (Fed. Cir.), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 811 (1990).



     At our request, the agency provided to us a copy of the collective bargaining

agreement between the NTEU and the Customs Service, and both the agency and the

employee have commented on our jurisdiction to hear the case.  The collective bargaining

agreement contains, at Article 31, a dispute resolution procedure.  This procedure covers all

issues raised by employees in the bargaining unit and is "the exclusive administrative

procedure[] available to bargaining unit employees and the parties [NTEU and the Customs

Service] for resolving disputes which fall within its coverage."  The agreement defines

"dispute" to include any issue concerning "(1) the effect or interpretation . . . of this

Agreement; or (2) any claimed violation, misinterpretation, or misapplication of any law, rule

or regulation affecting conditions of employment."  The agreement specifically excludes

certain matters from the coverage of the dispute resolution procedure.



     Ms. Moorman is a member of the bargaining unit.  The matter raised by her is not

specifically excluded from the coverage of the agreement's dispute resolution procedure.  To

the contrary, the matter involves either the effect or interpretation of Article 23 of the

agreement, "Travel" (which includes local travel); a claimed violation, misinterpretation, or

misapplication of laws, rules, or regulations affecting travel (a condition of employment); or

both.



     Because Ms. Moorman's claim is governed by the collective bargaining agreement and

is not specifically excluded from that agreement's "exclusive administrative [dispute

resolution] procedure[]," we have no jurisdiction to consider the claim.  E.g., Robert M.

Blair, GSBCA 15570-RELO, 01-2 BCA   31,511; James P. Mullins, GSBCA 15263-TRAV,

01-1 BCA   31,401; Jesse Chavez, GSBCA 15443-TRAV, 01-1 BCA   31,365. 



     Ms. Moorman asserts that agency management has not been willing to negotiate

various issues regarding conditions of employment, and that the union has not taken certain

matters to arbitration (a possible avenue for dispute resolution under the collective bargaining

agreement) due to lack of funds.  These assertions are separate matters which are

appropriately addressed to other entities.  Even if true, they have no impact on our authority

to hear this case.

     The case is dismissed.











                                   _________________________ 

                                   STEPHEN M. DANIELS

                                   Board Judge