Washington, D.C. - U.S. Office of Personnel Management Director Linda M. Springer announced the successful launch of the agency's revamped Labor Agreement Information Retrieval System (LAIRS) at http://lairs.opm.gov.

The upgraded LAIRS, a repository for Federal sector labor agreements and bargaining unit information, has been restructured with new software to enable searches using key words and terms, as well as the ability to create reports from available information. The system has also been expanded to include the agency's previously published Union Recognition in the Federal Government and Negotiability Determinations by the FLRA reports.

"During the redesign process, OPM worked closely with agency and union representatives to improve the system," indicated Director Springer. "And the result is a more useful tool for the Federal labor-management relations community, which takes advantage of advances in Internet technology, database search engines and user interface facilities," she noted.

The LAIRS' new searchable database includes representational data on all bargaining units certified by the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA), the complete texts of Federal sector collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) and a regularly updated summary of negotiability determinations issued by the FLRA. The search engine allows users, for example, to select CBAs negotiated by a particular agency, retrieve collective bargaining agreements for a certain bargaining unit and search CBAs on certain topics.

The union recognition reports cover all labor organizations and bargaining units in the Federal government, including where the units are located, the types and numbers of employees represented and the dates of any related collective bargaining agreements. The negotiability determinations information summarizes negotiability determinations issued by the FLRA since 1979.