Can Republican negotiations around the sequester be defined legally as "bad faith" bargaining?
The NLRB and the courts have defined some situations that indicate lack of good faith bargaining in collective bargaining between a union and an employer. These include
(1) Employer rejects a union proposal which the employer had made; (2) Failure to make counter-proposals (3) Withdrawal of proposals previously agreed upon;(4) Failure to reach agreement on even minor issues; (5) Proposals which are regressive [take away benefits that workers currently enjoy] without an adequate explanation or which are contradictory to the employer's treatment of non-union work force; (6) Failure to meet regularly and at convenient places; (7) Using a bargainer without sufficient authority to reach an agreement; (8) Proposals for contracts of excessive length or very short duration; ... (10) Statements which suggest bargaining for the purpose of ... forcing impasse or avoiding agreement...
From
Offensive Bargaining, Rosenfeld, David 1995