OpenMarket: Government Unions

Today the House Subcommittee on Government Operations held a hearing entitled “Union Time on the People’s Dime: A Closer Look at Official Time.” The purpose of the hearing was to review problems with the practice of official time, which grants federal employees paid time off to perform union business at the taxpayers’ expense. In addition, to discuss potential legislative reforms to official time.

Federal employee unions enjoy a government subsidy known as “official time” that enables union members to perform union duties while being paid by the taxpayer. During the Obama administration, the costs of the subsidy were rarely reported. At the end of Obama’s presidency, the latest available official time data was from fiscal year 2014.

An uptick in teacher union strikes has occurred over past few months. Teachers have abandoned students in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Oklahoma with rumblings of a potential strike in Arizona. What is spurring this increase in union walk-outs? Governing magazine puts forth the idea that the labor laws in these Republican dominated states, which limit union collective bargaining privileges, may be a contributing factor.

Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos deserves a round of applause. Most federal agencies, even in Republican administrations, agree to collective bargaining agreements that heavily subsidize federal employee unions’ cost of representation. Instead, DeVos diverged from past practices and scored a win for taxpayers. 

This week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in case Janus v. AFSCME, which could significantly impact unions representing government employees. A ruling in favor of plaintiff Mark Janus, an Illinois social service worker, would free public employees across the country from being required to pay for union representation as a condition of employment.

Today at oral argument in Janus v. AFSCME, Council 31, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said “You're basically arguing, do away with unions,” when questioning Bill Messenger, an attorney defending plaintiff Mark Janus, for the National Right to Work Legal Foundation.

President Trump has said that “billions and billions of dollars are being wasted on activities that are not delivering results for hardworking American taxpayers.” The inspection of federal employee collective bargaining agreements is a good place to start reversing that.

Workers should have the right to speak for themselves at their workplace and decide how to spend their hard earned wages.

Under OPM policy, exempt federal employees who work during a shutdown “serving as union officials may continue to be granted official time to the same extent and in the same manner as they would under nonshutdown conditions.”

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It is CEI’s contention that strong labor regulation, including collective bargaining mandates, is detrimental to the general welfare, as it prioritizes the wants of union leaders and their supporters over the needs of other citizens.

Lowell Gallaway and Jonathan Robe demonstrated this in our...