Recently introduced legislation would do away with the federal employees’ use of official time while conducting union related business.
The No Union Time on the Taxpayer’s Dime Act (S. 4868) was introduced by Senator Mike Lee (R-UT). Similar legislation (H.R. 9191) was recently introduced in the House by Congressman Dan Bishop (R-NC).
“Taxpayers should not be burdened with the cost of federal employees engaging in union activities,” said Senator Lee. “Federal salaries are funded by the taxpayers, who rightfully expect federal employees to work on their assigned duties while on the clock. The No Union Time on the Taxpayer’s Dime Act ensures that union-related activities are conducted on personal time and at personal expense.”
Similar legislation has been introduced in the past but ultimately failed to become law.
What is “Official Time?”
A press release about the bill states:
Since the passage of the Civil Service Reform Act in 1978, the practice known as “official time” has allowed federal employees to use work hours for union-related activities and to handle cases before the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA). This means federal employees can engage in union work, represent bargaining unit employees and advance union causes while being paid by the taxpayer.
In its latest available report on official time, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) defined official time as:
“Official time,” as authorized by 5 U.S.C. § 7131, is paid time spent by Federal employees
performing representational work for a bargaining unit in lieu of their regularly assigned work. In other words, the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) has equated official time to be the same as work time or hours of work.
Reporting (or Lack Thereof) on Official Time
The last available official time reports were published during the Trump administration, the latest of which was for fiscal year 2019. Under the Biden administration, OPM has stopped publishing official time reports.
In December 2023, a group of Senators pressed OPM as to why the agency had apparently removed the official time reports section from its website, arguing in a letter to the agency that it was critical for Congressional oversight. They wrote in their letter:
This webpage, which has been made available by various administrations since 2013, is critical for congressional oversight over the federal civil service workforce. Further, it is also concerning that under this Administration, OPM appears to have stopped creating official time reports which have been published since 1998. The American people deserve to know how much “official time” is being conducted and funded by their hard-earned taxpayer dollars.
What Does Official Time Cost Taxpayers?
In his press release about the bill, Lee described official time as “the misuse of taxpayer dollars for union-related activities by federal employees during work hours.”
He cited the costs as a primary factor as the basis for the legislation. He noted that a 2016 report on official time from OPM stated that federal employees spent 3.6 million hours on official time at a cost of $177.2 million. According to OPM, this figure increased by 9% from fiscal year 2014 to 2016, going from $162.5 million in fiscal year 2014 to approximately $177.2 million in 2016.
In FY 2019, the last available official time report published by OPM, agencies reported 2.6 million hours of official time use, a 28.2% decrease over FY 2016.
The reality though is that no one really knows how much official time is costing taxpayers. Certainly the elimination of published reports doesn’t help, but the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has reported in the past that the actual cost of official time is considerably higher than what OPM was reporting. GAO also said in that report that reporting on official time was “not a priority” for OPM anyway.
The new bill is not likely to go anywhere under the Biden administration, but if the Trump administration were to be reelected, greater scrutiny of official time is likely given the former president’s past efforts to restrict federal employees’ use of official time.
