White House requires federal agencies to disclose time spent working for unions instead of taxpayers

The Trump administration has restored reporting and transparency requirements for so-called “official time,” the practice where government workers are allowed to act exclusively on behalf of their unions while still being paid by taxpayers. The Biden administration had attempted to hide the practice from public view, first by stopping the reports on it and later by scrubbing historic information about the practice from government websites.

A Feb. 27 memo from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to all federal departments and agencies declared they can only authorize official time in amounts that are “reasonable” and that they must “monitor its use to see that it is used efficiently.” They must also submit annual reports to OPM on the amount authorized.

Union members traditionally elect a fellow worker to act as their representative for issues like bargaining contracts or dealing with grievances. This person, usually called a “shop steward,” is expected to perform union activities in addition to their regular job. In some cases, these union officials are paid through membership dues and work exclusively on their members’ behalf. The federal government, however, allows the workers to do union stuff full-time while still technically drawing a salary from their official job. The practice is dubbed “official time.”

It is currently unknown exactly how extensive this practice is. The announcement is therefore good news for taxpayers, who will gain valuable insight on how public sector unions are able to lobby the federal government on behalf of their members.

A worker on official time does what a union representative does: negotiate for higher pay and benefits for government workers as well as address worker grievances. This raises the burden on taxpayers by increasing the government’s labor costs. In effect, “official time” means the government is literally paying someone to make the government more expensive and less efficient.

OPM had produced annual reports on official time use until the Biden administration quietly discontinued the practice in 2021. The last report issued covered 2019 and said that a total of 2.6 million work hours were spent by government employees working exclusively on behalf of their unions. That was down from previous years. A 2014 report by OPM put the total number at 3.4 million hours. CEI estimated in 2017 that there 700 workers in the federal government who never worked for taxpayers thanks to official time.

The Biden administration, which was aggressively pro-union, announced in March 2023 that the number of federal employees in unions had grown by 20 percent under its watch. The amount of official time used almost certainly increased with this growth in the workforce.

Official time is supposedly a trade-off for public sector unions. These unions are sometimes prohibited by law from doing key things that their private sector counterparts are allowed to do, such as striking, if doing so would endanger the public. Defenders of the practice contend that having full-time labor officials representing public employees makes resolving union complaints and grievances easier and therefore saves the government money.

CEI has long criticized official time as wasteful and inefficient and called for the federal government to stop allowing its use. OPM’s announcement doesn’t go nearly that far, but simply letting taxpayers know how their money is being used is a step in the right direction.