The Federal Labor Relations Authority is currently operating with one member, Ernest DuBester, who is now the authority's chairman, FLRA said in an undated posting on its website, explaining that the authority cannot issue final decisions without a quorum of at least two members.

"With one Member, the Authority lacks a quorum, which is necessary for the Authority to decide cases under the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute. Therefore, the Authority cannot issue final decisions in arbitration, negotiability, representation, and unfair labor practice cases," FLRA said in its posting.

This affects the processing of both pending cases and cases that will be filed during this period, the authority said. When a quorum is re-established, it said, the authority will resume issuing decisions.

The agency added, however, that other than the authority not being able to issue final decisions, it is "business as usual" at FLRA. Other FLRA components are not affected by the lack of a quorum, it said.

"Without exception, work continues uninterrupted in the Office of the General Counsel (OGC), the Office of Administrative Law Judges (OALJ), and the Federal Service Impasses Panel (FSIP) because these components are not affected by the lack of a quorum in the Authority component," it said.

According to the posting, Carol Waller Pope was the FLRA chair until Jan. 4, when the 112th Congress adjourned and her term as chair and member of the authority expired. On Jan. 15, President Obama designated DuBester as FLRA chair, the posting said.

The White House announced Jan. 22 that it had sent Pope's nomination for reappointment as a member of the authority to the Senate. The reappointment would expire July 1, 2014, according to the announcement.

The three-member authority under law may not consist of more than two "adherents of the same political party," although a quorum of two members will allow it to resume issuing final decisions. Pope and DuBester were the authority's Democratic members. The Republican member, Thomas M. Beck, who served as chairman under former President George W. Bush, resigned from his position effective Aug. 3, 2012.

Pope's most recent appointment expired in July 2009, but she was able to continue as an FLRA member through the end of the 112th Congress under the statute governing the authority.

In other public sector news:

• President Obama signed legislation (H.R. 4365) to clarify that tax levies can be enforced against accounts in the Thrift Savings Plan, the defined contribution component of the Federal Employees Retirement System.

• Reversing the Merit Systems Protection Board, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that a federal employee is entitled to his full Federal Employee Retirement System disability retirement annuity for those working months during which he could not receive Social Security Administration disability benefits. 

• The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit upheld Wisconsin's 2011 law limiting collective bargaining rights for most public sector workers, reversing a district court's finding that the law violated the First Amendment and the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution. 

• New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) proposed a state budget that would change binding arbitration provisions for police officers and firefighters, restructure pension funding for public employers, and consolidate state agencies involved in employee relations.