Posts tagged IRS
Social Security ordered to restore telework; EPA and NASA roll back collective bargaining
March 15, 2026 // A provision in AFGE’s collective bargaining agreement with SSA gives agency management “sole discretion to temporarily change, reduce, or suspend approved telework day(s) for any employee(s), office, component, or agency-wide due to operational needs.” The contract also gives agency management sole discretion to change, reduce, or suspend approved telework for any employee due to their performance.
Commentary: $45 Million, No Answers: NJEA Leadership Still Owes Teachers the Truth
March 11, 2026 // How would you feel if you joined a union and paid $1,400 in dues each and every year, and the union’s president decided to run for governor and used $47 million of your and your fellow teachers’ dues without asking you? And then came in fifth place in the primary? Well, that’s what the NJEA’s president, Sean Spiller, did. How would you feel if $10 million of the $47 million was sent to a little-known firm, AP Consulting, for canvassing operations? No one spends that kind of money on canvassing in a primary. It raises legitimate questions about who authorized those payments, what services were provided, and why such an extraordinary sum was routed through a firm with limited publicly known political field experience.
Trump administration wants to streamline federal worker layoffs
March 10, 2026 // The Office of Personnel Management, the federal government’s HR arm, published a proposed rule Thursday that it says will streamline the layoff process and put a new emphasis on job performance rankings rather than seniority. The new proposal will now undergo a 60-day comment period and has already faced pushback from the largest federal workers’ union, which has argued that the performance review system has been manipulated to cap how many employees receive high rankings.
Treasury Department terminates union contracts for IRS and Bureau of the Fiscal Service workers
March 2, 2026 // The Treasury Department has terminated its collective bargaining agreement with unionized workers employed at the Internal Revenue Service, the agency said Friday, in an escalation of President Donald Trump ’s push to exert more control over the federal workforce. The union contract for the Bureau of the Fiscal Service was also terminated this week, according to two people familiar with the decision.
Trump lauds ‘tremendous’ federal workforce cuts. Good government group calls them ‘disturbing.’
January 21, 2026 // Going forward, the Trump administration is looking to make further changes for the federal workforce, including overhauls to the probationary period and federal hiring processes, as well as performance management and senior executive development. OPM’s Kupor said the upcoming changes will make government “leaner,” while making federal employees more results-oriented, accountable and efficient.
Commentary: A Cautionary Moment for Union Transparency as Former NJEA Leader Seeks a National Role
December 17, 2025 // Most notably, a pair of New Jersey teachers have filed suit against the NJEA and its former leadership, alleging that millions of dollars in mandatory dues were used for political activities—including a nearly $50 million governor’s race—without meaningful member consent. These allegations are serious. They speak not only to how decisions were made, but to whether educators had clear information about how their own money was being deployed. At the same time, the New Jersey Policy Institute has filed complaints with both the IRS and the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission, asking regulators to examine whether the union’s funding structures and political accounts complied with federal and state rules.
Opinion: A Teachers Union Candidate Took My Money and Ran for Office
October 22, 2025 // in a lawsuit filed Sept. 30 in New Jersey Superior Court, that it was also an illegal breach of contract and a violation of the union’s fiduciary duty to its members. On paper, the union tells teachers that giving to its political organizations is voluntary. The membership forms we signed, which function as a contract between a member and the union, have a separate box to check for voluntary donations to the union’s political action committee. I didn’t check that box and therefore believed my money wouldn’t be used by a PAC. That wasn’t true. In 2013 union officials created an obscure political group called Garden State Forward and funded it with more than $100 million in teachers’ dues.
Former teachers union president sued, accused of $40M campaign cash grab
October 3, 2025 // Dupont said she opted out of supporting the union’s PAC when she signed her membership card. “Then I found out that a handful of union insiders spent $40 million of teachers’ dues – including mine – on the union president’s political ambitions. That’s wrong, and I believe it’s illegal.”
The Importance of Protecting Portable Benefits
August 19, 2025 // The modern gig economy employs about 75 million workers. The provision of benefits is, of course, a positive for these freelance workers – so if businesses wish to provide them, they should be able to do so without fear of misclassification lawsuits. In short, Congress should consider these bills as a positive for both the millions of gig workers and the businesses that wish to provide them competitive benefits packages.
We finally know who paid for Josh Shapiro’s inauguration celebrations (kinda)
August 12, 2025 // A fundraising pitch prepared by Shapiro’s inauguration committee and reviewed by Spotlight PA promised high-dollar contributors face time with the governor. “VIP tickets to the Inaugural Celebration include access to the VIP lounge through the evening,” fine print on the document states. “A clutch with Governor-Elect Shapiro and Lt. Governor-Elect [Austin] Davis will be held in the VIP lounge at the start of the event.” Unlike some states, cities, and the federal government, Pennsylvania does not require top elected officials to disclose who contributes to celebrations held to mark their entrance into office. Shapiro has declined to do so voluntarily.