Posts tagged Executive Order
OPINION: Federal Workers Shouldn’t Have Collective-Bargaining Rights
March 25, 2025 // To that end, Trump should push the GOP-controlled House and Senate to pass legislation banning federal workers from collectively bargaining. He and other leaders should frame that policy as a way to save taxpayers’ money. As the Institute for the American Worker has shown, the collective-bargaining process costs taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars yearly. Trump wouldn’t be the first president to oppose federal collective bargaining. Even liberal icon Franklin Delano Roosevelt rejected the practice, arguing that it made government less accountable. He was right. When federal unions negotiate with agencies, the taxpayers who fund them have no voice.
Commentary: Taxpayer-Funded Union Work Deserves Transparency, Limits
March 21, 2025 // The Office of Personnel Management estimated federal employees spent at least 2.6 million hours on official time in fiscal year 2019, at a cost to taxpayers of $135 million. This was after President Trump sharply curbed taxpayer-funded union time via a 2018 executive order. Because unions have a right to unspecified quantities of official time under federal statute, the most the president can do without congressional action is implement parameters around its use or, in the case of the Biden administration, crank it to 11. In his drive to become “the most pro-union president in history,” Biden rescinded Trump’s executive order limiting official time and directed federal agencies to grant unions more taxpayer-funded union time.
Commentary Rachel Greszler: What Trump Memo on Taxpayer-Funded Union Time Means for Federal Employee Unions
March 18, 2025 // In addition to tracking the number of employees and their time, agencies also have to report on other taxpayer-provided subsidies to unions. That would include, for example, “a single Veterans Affairs facility allocate[ing] half of a hospital wing—over 5,000 square feet—largely for the use of the union president and officials” as exposed in a report from the Institute for the American Worker. The irony of federal employees’ excessive use of official time is that they can’t even bargain for the biggest things most unions bargain over—pay and benefits. And working predominantly in offices (or, prior to Trump’s executive order requiring federal employees to return to the office, in their homes) hardly poses a need for lengthy worker safety negotiations. That leaves official time to be predominantly spent defending poor performers and bad actors that agencies have disciplined or dismissed, and negotiating over tedious things like the height of cubicle panels; designated smoking areas on otherwise smoke-free campuses; and the right to wear spandex at work.
VTA asks for Gov. Newsom’s intervention to force striking union employees back to work
March 17, 2025 // The VTA, whose buses and light rail trains have been idled since workers walked out Monday, also disclosed Saturday filed March 10 for a Superior Court injunction to "stop the irreparable harm to the community." The transit authority argues that Amalgamated Transit Union Local 265, representing more than 1,500 VTA workers, violated a "no strike" clause in its contract, even though the agreement expired at 11:59 p.m. Sunday.
Op-ed: Priorities for Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer
March 11, 2025 // These reforms align with President Trump’s bold vision, exemplified by the reinstatement of Schedule F, to enhance accountability and performance in the federal workforce. They are not just about efficiency-they are about empowering federal employees to thrive while delivering exceptional service to Americans. Secretary Chavez-DeRemer has a chance to lead with principle, prioritizing worker autonomy over union influence. The time to act is now. On behalf of Americans for Fair Treatment, I stand ready to support her in unleashing the full potential of our federal workforce.
Commentary: Freelance Busting: The Ratio Reality
March 11, 2025 // Democrats, led by Senate and House Minority Leaders Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, both of New York, just reintroduced the Richard L. Trumka Protecting the Right to Organize Act. Named for a former head of the AFL-CIO, this bill, H.R. 20, does the same thing that California Governor Gavin Newsom claimed AB5 would do. The PRO Act aims to reclassify independent contractors as employees as a way to empower union organizers. As Jeffries put it in Congress: “When our unions are strong, the United States of America is strong.” Republicans, led by Rep. Kevin Kiley of California, put forward the Modern Worker Empowerment Act. This bill, H.R. 1319, aims to stop California’s experiment from spreading. It would protect everyone’s freedom to be our own bosses. As Kiley put it: “California’s disastrous AB5 law wreaked havoc on independent workers, stripping them of their ability to work on their own terms and forcing businesses to cut off contractor relationships. Shifting federal regulations threaten to impose similar uncertainty nationwide, putting millions of workers at risk.”
Freedom Foundation Applauds OPM Directive to Report on Government Union Work
March 5, 2025 // In Nov. 2023, the Freedom Foundation reported that OPM had not only stopped reporting on the amount of official time used by federal employees — as it had done under presidents of both parties since the late 1990s — but had taken down the page on its website housing years of reports on the use and cost of official time to taxpayers, all while promoting expanded use of taxpayer-funded union time. The following month, citing the Freedom Foundation’s investigation, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and nine other Republican U.S. Senators sent an oversight letter to OPM demanding to know why the webpage was removed and whether OPM would publish any further updates on taxpayer-funded union time. After Biden’s OPM director responded that her agency had no intention of restoring the official time webpage, much less conducting another study on the costs of taxpayer-funded union time, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) and Rep. Scott Franklin (R-FL) introduced the Taxpayer-Funded Union Time Transparency Act, which would require each federal agency to track and annually report the amount of time its employees spend on union business and the cost of such official time to taxpayers.
White House seeks data on federal staffers’ union work, raising alarms
March 4, 2025 // Legislation passed by Congress in 1978 grants federal government employees designated paid time during work hours — known as “official time” — to engage in certain union matters related to labor-management activities, such as bargaining contracts, filing grievance proceedings and holding workplace safety trainings. A federal worker, for example, may be allowed to use paid work time to represent an employee who is getting disciplined or fired. Official time is not allocated for union-specific business, such as union drives or elections.
Op-ed: As unions fight reform, Trump should assert executive power
February 26, 2025 // Unfortunately, for decades, unions and their collective bargaining agreements have hamstrung presidents and the people they’ve chosen to run federal departments and agencies in all the wrong ways. Under a bill President Carter signed in 1978, the president cannot simply reject a proposed union agreement but must go before the Federal Service Impasses Panel, or arbitrator that can make him accept terms he doesn’t want. Also, union agreements prevent incompetent or unethical employees protected by a union from being fired or even having negative notes placed in their files without notice and an opportunity to bring grievance proceedings, where unions will back even the least deserving member to the hilt.
Trump moves to cancel recent union agreements with federal workers
February 3, 2025 // The memo cites a U.S. Department of Education collective bargaining agreement reached three days before Trump took office that "generally prohibits the agency from returning remote employees to their offices." Trump has signed an executive order that would require federal employees to work in-office five days a week, reversing a remote working trend that took off in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.