On January 15, 2024, Rachel Greszler testified before the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to review the federal workforce labor policies of the Biden-Harris Administration.
Greszler highlighted the fact that taxpayers are currently paying for federal employees to spend an unknown amount of time working for their federal employee unions instead of doing their jobs. While performing this so-called “official time,” not only are federal employees skipping out on their work, but they are negotiating for things that are often directly counter to taxpayers’ interests. If private sector union workers want to abandon their jobs and work for their union, their employer does not have to pay them to do so. The same should hold for federal employee union workers.
Millions in Taxpayer Dollars Spent on Federal Employees’ Union Work
Taxpayers subsidize federal employee unions by providing office space and supplies, paying for the time spent on union representation matters and associated travel, and paying federal employees to work on “official time” for their unions instead of performing their jobs.
We don’t know how much time and money federal employees currently spend on official time because the Biden Administration removed the Office of Personnel Management’s webpage that prior administrations of both parties have maintained in recent decades (the site now displays an error message) and told agencies they did not have to report official time.
In the last full year of the Obama Administration, fiscal year 2016, federal employees spent 3.6 million hours on official time, equal to nearly 2,000 full-time federal employees. If official time in 2024 was the same as in 2016, that would amount to more than $321 million in taxpayer costs, based on the average federal employee salary of $106,400 and benefits equal to $56,500. The actual figure is likely much higher, and undoubtedly exceeded one billion dollars during the Biden Administration.
The House Committee on Oversight and Accountability discovered that the Social Security Administration had 1,030 employees spend a total of 242,237 hours on official time in Fiscal Year 2023. This cost taxpayers $15.1 million, including $1.43 million to pay 14 SSA employees who spent 100 percent of their time working for their union. Meanwhile, senior citizens across the country were struggling to get in touch with SSA employees and unable to get in-person appointments at their local SSA offices.
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) utilizes one of the highest rates of official time, even as Senator Ernst’s Out of Office Report found that, “[t]housands of calls from veterans seeking mental health care go unanswered.” The Institute for the America Worker sought a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request on the VA’s use of official time, but the “Department of Veterans Affairs responded in part with a ‘no records’ response and refused to provide additional records responsive to the FOIA request.” As of 2019, the VA had 1,895 employees spend a total of 324,105 hours on official time—the equivalent of about 175 full-time employees.
This was before the Biden Administration reversed a Trump Administration executive order that prevented federal employees from spending more than 25 percent of their work hours on official time. Without any limits, the total amount of official time at the VA is presumably much higher today and almost certainly includes nurses and other healthcare professionals spending 100 percent of their time working for their union instead of treating veterans.
The Reality of Federal Employee Union Bargaining
The disturbing irony of federal employees’ excessive use of official time is that, unlike private sector unions, federal unions cannot even bargain for compensation. And since most federal employees work in office jobs with few hazards (or telework from home), they are also not bargaining for important things like workplace safety provisions.
In addition to fighting nearly any and all adverse actions managers take to try to improve employee performance, federal employee unions spend a lot of time and taxpayer money bargaining for tedious things like the height of cubicle panels; designated smoking areas on otherwise smoke-free campuses; and the right to wear spandex at work. These are not things taxpayers should have to pay for.
Solution: The No Union Time on the Taxpayer’s Dime Act
The “No Union Time on the Taxpayers’ Dime Act,” introduced by Senator Mike Lee (R–UT) and then-Representative Dan Bishop (R–NC), would end the practice of official time, thereby requiring federal union members to foot the bill for their own activities.
When faced with having to fund their own payrolls and charge federal employees for the full cost of union activities, federal employee unions would have to spend their efforts only on things their members were willing to pay full-price to receive.
