Antonin Scalia

“ Petitioner claims that, in order to prove that the cost of a given proposal is not outweighed by "compensating benefits," an agency must disprove not only monetary benefits, but also nonmonetary "intangible" benefits such as the positive effects that a proposed change might have on employee morale. Although counsel for the Authority agreed with petitioner's statement of its test at oral argument before this Court, it is not entirely clear from the Authority's cases that the "benefits" side of the calculus is as all embracing as petitioner suggests. ”

“ The subchapter referred to contains restrictions on partisan political activities of federal employees and protects them from being required or coerced to engage in political activity. It is barely conceivable, but most unlikely, that this provision of § 7103 (a) (14) was meant to exclude from collective-bargaining proposals that would somehow infect with politics the "physical conditions" of the workplace; it seems much more plausibly directed at "conditions of employment" in the sense of qualifications demanded of, or obligations imposed upon, employees. ”

“ Because each of these statutes specifically refers to wages, the argument runs, we must infer from the absence of such a reference in the FSLMRS that Congress did not mean to include them. But those other statutes deal with labor-management relations in entirely different fields of employment, and the FSLMRS contains no indication that it is to be read in pari materia with them. The first of those provisions does (perhaps) show that the term "conditions of employment" can be used to refer only to physical circumstances of employment ”

“ See Department of Defense Dependents Schools v. FLRA, 274 U.S.App.D.C. 299, 301, 863 F.2d 988, 990 (1988) ("The term 'working conditions' ordinarily calls to mind the day-to-day circumstances under which an employee performs his or her job") , rehearing en banc granted, No. ”