A Senate bill revives the official union time question

Except for a brief few years during the Trump administration, federal employee unions have had official time for decades. Official time means federal employees can spend work time on union business such as filing grievances. A Senate bill filed by Utah Republican Mike Lee would outlaw official time. One group in favor is the National Right to Work Committee. Mark Mix, the committee’s president, joined the Federal Drive with Tom Temin to discuss.

Interview transcript: 

Tom Temin: Now, if you talk to the federal employee unions and to federal employees in unions, official time is a perfectly logical way of getting routine personnel business done. What’s the problem here?

Mark Mix: Well, this was all started back under the Carter administration under the Civil Service Reform Act, and it gave union officials a really unique privilege. And two of the elements that I think are probably the most important in your entry lead-in was talking about representational issues and grievances and that kind of thing. But the power of union officials also contains the ability for them to lobby Congress concerning pending or desired legislation affecting bargaining employees, bills on federal pay and benefits, etc., like that. So you can get paid for lobbying. And then secondly, it allows certain employees to do 100% of their time handling union issues and functions. And that’s kind of an interesting concept that a private organization that is obviously representing federal employees. We have the same model in the private sector that they can basically build the taxpayers for the work that they do after they go out and they convince workers to represent them or to join their union for amplifying their voice, which is perfectly fine and perfectly legal under the law. But the idea that union officials can spend 100% of their time doing union activity, including lobbying Congress, is really an interesting concept. We just had a case out in Arizona about this and the Arizona Supreme Court struck down the official time of the public sector unions out there. The government sector union saying that this was a violation of Arizona statute that they were being paid to do what was presumptively union work as opposed to the work of the government. And obviously union officials who filed a lawsuit against Trump’s executive order back in 2017, I think when he filed that executive order, they obviously have very big concerns about that. It’s interesting Tom. They charge workers union dues and fees to support their staff and their structure, but yet, here we are taxpayers paying for 100% of the federal employees time to do completely union work. I think those are the things that Sen. Mike Lee’s looking at from a standpoint of why do we do this? Why do why did the taxpayers foot the bill for 100% of a federal employee’s time who’s on the federal clock getting federal retirement benefits and all those other things and they’re doing union work only. I think it’s a real question and your intro said, if you’re not surprised that we support this bill. I think there’s a lot of people out there when they understand the ramifications of a private organization, i.e., a union, and union officials being able to collect 100% of their pay by doing union only work and not doing the work that they were hired initially in the federal government, something that should be concerned. Some should be discussed. And so hopefully we’ll have a robust discussion about this at some point.

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Tom Temin: And not to split hairs, but in the Trump administration, they didn’t eliminate official time. They simply gave a certain number of hours to each agency per year, which in effect ended the idea of someone being full time on union. But they could also maybe spend a certain part of the day divided by the hours. And the unions at that point said, ‘Well, we have all these cases to deal with. That means we have to deal with it on our time at night and weekends.’ Yeah?

Mark Mix: Yeah. Well, of course. Imagine that. In one of the other parts of that executive order was actually keeping track of the union official time hours, and I think in 2019, the last year that it was being tracked, because as soon as Biden came in, he repealed the executive order. So there’s no longer an accounting of that, but we have a report that over 2.6 million hours of official time were used in 2019 at a cost of around $163 million in payroll and other costs alone for that year. And that’s the last year that official time data was recorded and analyzed because, as I mentioned, as soon as Biden got in, he repealed that executive order. So there’s no longer an accounting of any that time. So that’s a pretty significant chunk of time. Well, I guess it’s pretty minor when you think about the cost of operating the federal government from a personnel standpoint, but the idea that, again, an employee was hired to do federal work can actually basically charge the taxpayers for 100% of their time to do union work, no matter what it is. And that’s one of the things that unions want where they want workers to vote for them. They say, ‘Look, we can handle these representational issues for you.’ And I guess they could decide not to do that. But that’s not the way labor laws structured either on the federal side or in the private sector side. This idea of grievances is basically adjudicating the language of a contract so the union and the federal government or the private sector employer negotiate a contract. And what a grievance is, very simply, is there’s a question about the implementation or the adjudication of a clause in the contract that the union agreed to or the employer agreed to when the contract was put in place. And so they’re interesting issues and I think the debate about the privileges that union officials have that go all the way back in the public sector. But in the private sector, to the 1930s and the kind of the labor model that’s been created, this is just another privilege where somebody else is footing the bill for the things that the union has said they want to do and the things they claim they want to do when they ask workers to vote for them to represent them.

Tom Temin: We’re speaking with Mark Mix. He’s president of the National Right to Work Committee. And earlier you mentioned, besides taking care of grievance and administrative and contract related issues, there was also the lobbying of Congress, and I think it was the Lloyd-La Follette Act back in 1912, which let federal employees talk to Congress without prior approval from their agency. But that’s a different issue as about when they do that. How does that all mix in here?

Mark Mix: Well, I’m not familiar with that act. I appreciate you going back that far in history and having information. Look, the idea of them being able to lobby Congress or lobby their bosses, if you will, on something that’s on the floor of the House or the floor of the Senate or this working its way through the legislative process, that’s something that we’ve been involved in for a long time. In fact, our Supreme Court case in Janus v. AFSCME in 2018 basically addressed that issue of lobbying and that speech that the unions basically say we can go out and lobby on an issue, and it may be an issue this directly related to the grievance representation or whatever. But that is not limited to that in that sense, and when you add that to the fact that they’re a union member or union official can use 100% of their time to do these things under official time, from going back to the Carter years, where this was all created. I mean, that’s kind of an interesting concept. I mean, I think there’s been lots of issues with federal government union officials and disagreements within those organizations and the unions. And so giving union officials this power is something that’s really unique. I mean, I’m not sure that anyone else gets paid by the government to do these things, to lobby and to do other things that may have something other to do with other than grievance representation or the things that are “the fundamental processes of a union in the government sector.”

Tom Temin: And, by the way, in the private sector from your experience observing unions and union activities, do say, the bargaining unit at a General Motors plant somewhere, if they still have any plants left in the United States. What is the arrangement there? Can union members have the equivalent official time on GM or Ford’s dime?

Mark Mix: Well, I think so. In that case in the private sector, it’s a different model, if you will, from a standpoint of who pays for it and who can be charged for it and how it works. Those things are negotiated sometimes in contracts that the union steward or the business agent doesn’t do “union work” anymore, but they do union work, and the company, if they want to agree to that in the private sector, that’s their money, not the taxpayer’s money. So this idea, this kind of equating government unions with private sector unions is really something union officials really strive to do. They talk about, ‘You got to pay your taxes.’ So it’s like you got to pay your union dues because we’re representing you. Well, that’s not true. They’re not government. And in the case of the government entity, who we give our power to use force against us, if you will in a limited sense, I hope, but they’re the one institution that we give them the power to do that. I think union officials and unions in general in the government sector, that’s a whole different argument when it comes to how that works. If Ford and GM and Stellantis want to get grant union officials and top union bosses 100% of their pay to do union work only. That’s a different question of whether or not the federal government should do that.

Tom Temin: And finally, you do watch legislative affairs as much as you watch union affairs. Is it your sense that this bill is going to have any real momentum in terms of co-sponsors and any chance of actually being enacted?

Mark Mix: Well, I mean, Tom, you follow the federal legislative process more closely than I do. And certainly, this bill is something that’s messaging to the sense of, ‘Hey, this is happening and people should know about it.’ I think taxpayers should know about it. The idea that passing in this Congress, obviously, is very limited. The fact that it might pass in a new Congress is something that might be of interest and may get a little traction. These bills as they make their way through the House and the Senate, the Senate’s a little harder pill to climb, if you will, with the rules there, but the idea of making people aware of this is a really important aspect of what I think what Sen. Lee is trying to do, and I think that’s a reasonable thing to do. As I mentioned, the number of hours and the cost of this while just a rounding error when it comes to the operation of the federal government is still, in 2019 was $163 million of taxpayer money being used for it. So can it pass? I doubt it. I don’t think Joe Biden would sign the bill in the remaining days of his presidency. I suspect Kamala Harris would have of the same mindset that President Biden would have as it relates to giving union officials in the government sector more privileges and more power is something that she’s been talking about, and I don’t I wouldn’t be surprised if she tries to do that if she is elected. But I think it’s important that we have a discussion about these issues. And like I said, in Arizona just recently, within the last month I think, it’s been the Arizona Supreme Court basically said, ‘You know what, we’re not gonna force taxpayers in Arizona to pay for official time anymore of their union time.’

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