Posts tagged NTEU
Federal Worker Unions Lose Only 1 Percent of Complaints Filed Against Them by Government Workers: Study
July 14, 2023 // An analysis by Americans for Fair Treatment (AFFT) of Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) data found less than one percent of the more than 1,200 government worker complaints filed between December 2015 and December 2022 resulted in any kind of adverse action against civil service employee unions. The vast majority of the annual average of 193 complaints filed during the seven-year period involved the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the largest of the multiple labor groups representing portions of the 2.1 million federal civil service workforce.
New report finds inequity before labor boards
June 5, 2023 // Between December 2015 and December 2022, fewer than 1% of individuals’ charges by federal employees against their union resulted in an enforcement action. Of the 1,211 cases brought by individuals in the seven-year-period, just 9 resulted in an FLRA complaint against the union. Two unions—the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU)—accounted for the overwhelming majority of charges filed by individuals. Of the 1,211 charges, 935 were filed against AFGE, and 108 were filed against NTEU. Fewer than 1% of individuals’ charges resulted in a settlement of some kind. Of the 1,211 cases brought by individuals, just 12 resulted in a private or bilateral settlement. Over 52% of individuals’ charges were dismissed. Of the 1,211 cases brought by individuals, 636 were dismissed in full; another 2 were dismissed in part. Over 45% of individuals’ charges were withdrawn by the individual at some point prior to a determination. Of the 1,211 cases brought by individuals, 552 were marked as withdrawn.
As IRS Swells, So Will Democrat Campaign Coffers
April 17, 2023 // The IRS union PAC gave 100% of its PAC-to-PAC funding to Democrats in the 2022 cycle The IRS union PAC prioritized political donations to Democrats who happened to be in 2022 battleground races In fact, 95.83% of the IRS union PAC’s donations to federal candidates were steered to Democrats, including progressives
White House touts ‘significant results’ of task force after 80,000 feds opt to join a union
March 21, 2023 // Federal unions saw a roughly 20% increase in bargaining unit membership governmentwide, with close to 80,000 feds joining a union between September 2021 and September 2022, according to a March 17 update from the White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment. The Biden administration credited the “significant results” to the work of the task force, a group that President Joe Biden created through an April 2021 executive order seeking to strengthen collective bargaining rights for federal employees. Following the initial executive order, the task force, led by Vice President Kamala Harris, laid out 70 recommendations to improve labor-management relations for the federal workforce. Similar to the first priority of the President’s Management Agenda (PMA), the task force said it aims to position the federal government as a model employer, including through worker empowerment.
National Treasury Employees Union President Reardon to step down
March 20, 2023 // First elected to the union’s highest seat in 2015, Reardon, who has been involved with NTEU for more than three decades, will retire when his term ends on Aug. 10, 2023.
Goldwater Tells Federal Agency to Protect Workers’ Rights from Union Power Grab
January 26, 2023 // The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents more than 150,000 federal employees working in dozens of government agencies, is one of many big labor unions that wants to make it difficult for people to leave and stop paying dues, even though the U.S. Constitution and other federal laws protect workers and prohibit the unions’ money grab. That’s why the Goldwater Institute submitted comment to the Federal Labor Relations Authority last week opposing the National Treasury Employees Union’s request for rules and policy changes that would allow it to prevent its members from leaving the union or stop paying union dues unless they formally opt out within a narrow, annual window of time. In 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court made clear in its landmark Janus decision that the First Amendment protects the freedom to associate—or not to associate—for “expressive purposes.” The Court held that “[n]either an agency fee nor any other payment to the union may be deducted from a nonmember’s wages, nor may any other attempt be made to collect such a payment, unless the employee affirmatively consents to pay.” And such consent must be proven by “clear and compelling evidence,” a high legal hurdle for government employers.
State of the Unions: A New Normal
January 23, 2023 // Agencies and unions alike are likely to encounter more resistance to expanded telework and other workplace flexibilities from the newly divided Congress. House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., announced last week that he has introduced legislation that would require agencies to revert to pre-pandemic telework policies as well as a study about how telework impacted government services and productivity. In addition to rolling back Trump-era policies targeting union activity in the federal government, the White House has recommended a number of measures to make it easier for federal employee unions to communicate with workers they represent, as well as expand into agencies whose workforces have historically remained unorganized.
GOP revives rule allowing lawmakers to target federal agencies, staffers
January 12, 2023 // The rules package House Republicans approved late Monday includes a provision allowing lawmakers to reduce or eliminate federal agency programs and to slash the salaries of individual federal employees. Called the Holman Rule, the measure was proposed in 1876 but was sparingly used until it was reinstated by Republicans in 2017 and then dropped by Democrats two years later. In theory, it could apply to any federal worker or agency — but for now the move is seen as mostly symbolic, as the Democratic Senate could block Republicans from using the provision.
BLM employees unionize amid change, uncertainty
October 12, 2022 // Hundreds of Bureau of Land Management staffers have voted to join the National Treasury Employees Union, partly in response to the Trump-era relocation of the bureau’s Washington headquarters and the movement of hundreds of D.C. jobs to the West. The decisions by about 200 non-supervisory headquarters employees in May, and another roughly 200 in the New Mexico state office in February and in the Taos and Rio Puerco field offices there last spring, were also spurred by the Biden administration’s efforts to undo the Trump BLM reorganization. They likely will not be the last bureau employees to join the union, NTEU President Tony Reardon said. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland,
Federal unions have a way to locate unrepresented employees, OPM says
August 22, 2022 // The Office of Personnel Management has offered some extra help to federal unions looking to add eligible employees to their membership rosters. Federal unions have tools available in FedScope, OPM’s online federal employee database, to identify which agencies have the largest amounts of unrepresented workers, said Tim Curry, OPM’s deputy associate director for accountability and workforce relations, in an email obtained by Federal News Network. On the other hand, the departments of Education, Energy, Labor, State and Treasury, as well as the Department of Housing and Urban Development, were among the agencies with the lowest numbers of unrepresented workers. The most recent data available in FedScope is from March 2022. NFFE National President Randy Erwin,