Posts tagged OPM
Commerce agency near ‘collapse’ over telework, layoffs, union says
June 3, 2024 // Lawmakers, especially Republicans, have been wary of widespread remote work, saying customer service backlogs at government agencies including the Social Security Administration and the IRS prove the case for more in-person staff. Just last week, the acting director of the Office of Personnel Management, the federal government’s HR department, assured lawmakers that more than half of all federal employees work in-person full time.
How much time do federal bureaucrats spend working for unions?
April 6, 2024 // As an example of how the administration was already pursuing such policies, the report boasted of how Biden had “restored” official time at the Department of Veterans Affairs. The upshot: The more than 400 medical staff Trump had returned to their actual federal jobs could once again spend their workday on union activism rather than caring for the nation’s veterans. In a March 2023 update, the task force “proudly announced” the unionization of 80,000 more federal employees, purportedly due to the administration’s pro-union strategies. And earlier this month, Biden issued still another order directing federal agencies to establish “labor-management forums” at which agency leaders will engage in “pre-decisional” consultation with union officials over “workplace matters” and discuss how to “promote satisfactory labor relations.”
Biden administration defends decision to nix union accountability effort
March 29, 2024 // Now, in its letter to lawmakers, OPM points out it has moved the official time data to an “agency reports” webpage. However, the last official time report on the site is from fiscal year 2019, meaning none have been completed since Biden took office. No other official time reports are listed on the OPM reports page. “Most tellingly, Director [Kiran] Ahuja offered no apology for the removal of the official time webpage, made no commitment to restoring it, and declined to commit OPM to producing any additional estimates of taxpayer-funded union time use and costs in the future…” Maxford Nelsen, a labor policy expert at the Freedom Foundation, told The Center Square.
Biden admin silent as federal accountability site for union work remains missing
March 13, 2024 // OPM had altered its federal database to make it easier for unions to target and recruit employees not supporting the union. “This upgraded resource will be an excellent tool for our union to locate non-union employees across the federal government who are rightfully entitled to representation and a voice in their workplace,” NFFE National President Randy Erwin said in the release, which has now been removed. “NFFE specifically requested assistance in identifying the hundreds of thousands of unrepresented government workers, and today OPM delivered on its commitment to promote employee organizing and collective bargaining by rolling out the enhanced database. We are excited to help these federal employees who have not yet joined a union organize in their workplaces and obtain critical rights and benefits through unionizing.”
GOP senators press for report on ‘official time’ use by federal unions
December 19, 2023 // An agency spokesperson said in a statement to Federal Times that “previous reports on official time are not currently available because OPM is reorganizing our website to improve navigation and customer experience.” The Wayback Machine, an internet archive site, indicates the last time these reports were accessible on the web page was in July. OPM did not say when it would make an updated report publicly available. Official time Unions have said official time is an essential protected resource that allows them to be effective and timely when defending employees who have been discriminated against. It also help resolve issues before they balloon into more complicated conflicts, they say.
Commentary: To Unions, Organizing Time Is Fine When It’s on the Taxpayers’ Dime
June 29, 2023 // Despite public sector unions, and particularly teachers’ unions like Weingarten’s American Federation for Teachers, facing mounting scrutiny for their role in school closures and broader left-wing political activism, the practice of release time has garnered little attention.
Why Work from Home Jobs are Here to Stay for Federal Government Employees
May 31, 2023 // Given that passage into law would require a Democratic-controlled Senate and President Biden to go along, enactment of the Republican bill seems very unlikely. Potentially, Republicans could use passage of a final budget or even an increase of the debt ceiling, as a negotiation to push the measure into law, assuming they can get the votes. However, union agreements would still pose a serious challenge. The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) boasts a membership of over 281,000 individuals working in almost every agency of the federal and D.C. governments, spanning across 936 local unions. In December 2022, after prolonged legal battles with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the union announced that they had reached a settlement for immediate flexible work arrangements while they negotiate terms for a permanent telework program.
EXPERT INSIGHT: White House Claims that Federal Union Membership Grew Under Biden Appear Incorrect
May 3, 2023 // Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data reinforces this conclusion. BLS works with the Census Bureau to conduct monthly surveys used to calculate the unemployment rate. The interviewers also ask respondents questions about where they work and whether they are union members. Economists use the survey data to estimate union membership in various industries, including the federal government. Because the BLS data comes from a survey, it has a statistical margin of error and is less precise than union financial filings. Nonetheless, the BLS data shows the same pattern as union financial filings: A slight increase in 2022 and a modest overall decrease since 2020.
Unions ‘sound the alarm’ over worsening staff attrition at SSA
April 12, 2023 // With what AFGE said is a lack of competitive pay and benefits, SSA lost almost 4,500 bargaining unit employees in fiscal 2022 — over 10% of AFGE’s total membership for SSA.
Opinion: What Can We Learn from Growing Federal Sector Unions? (Hint: Maybe Clean Slate Works)
April 11, 2023 // Biden did much more than just not be Trump or speak in support of labor generally. His administration also put in place several polices that created conditions of true neutrality. For example, the Office of Personnel Management put out memos to ensure that federal managers maintained real neutrality during organizing campaigns. Those memos directed managers to consult with labor-management specialists before responding to employees’ questions about organizing to ensure that they did not convey any inaccurate or biased information. OPM also directed federal managers to actually make it easier for unions to organize. For the first time, agencies are required to allow unions to post information about their organization and contact information for union representatives on office bulletin boards, public websites, or employee-only intranets. OPM also directed agencies to share a list of bargaining-unit employees and their work email addresses with union officials and to invite unions to participate in the orientation process for new bargaining unit employees. The Biden Administration also encouraged agencies to restart labor-management forums, which the Trump Administration had tried to shut down.