Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa and Republican Rep. Scott Franklin of Florida introduced legislation Friday to mandate that the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) track the amount of time and money spent on union activities by federal bureaucrats.
OPM previously agreed to resume tracking “taxpayer-funded union time” (TFUT) in a Feb. 27 memo provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation, but Ernst’s legislation, the Taxpayer-Funded Union Time Transparency Act, would require the agency to report on TFUT annually. Ernst told the DCNF she was eager to find out just how much TFUT was costing taxpayers.
“Bureaucrats have forgotten that they serve the American people, not themselves,” Ernst said. “Taxpayers deserve to know just how much of their hard-earned money is footing the bill for the insane practice of taxpayer-funded union time. Once we figure out just how much these unions owe, I will be coming to collect every penny.”
Houston, we have a problem, bureaucrats are ripping off taxpayers by an astronomical amount.
If federal employees want to space out from their jobs, they need to refund the American people for every last penny.
https://t.co/d3NAcYFRmZ
— Joni Ernst (@SenJoniErnst) February 26, 2025
Ernst introduced the Taxpayer-Funded Union Time Transparency Act in 2024, after government employee unions resisted efforts to return to the office. She also introduced the Protecting Taxpayers’ Wallets Act in February, requiring unions to reimburse the government for the time bureaucrats spent on union activities and for government resources used for union activities.
Ernst requested that government agencies provide information on TFUT in December. Ernst’s office received information from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) about TFUT for fiscal years 2023 and 2024.
The data from NRC showed one employee, a project manager earning $171,469 a year, spent over 99% of their time on union work in fiscal year 2023, while a project manager earning $166,393 per year also spent over 99% of time on union activities in fiscal year 2024. Three other employees, listed as reliability and risk engineers earning at least $163,000 a year in the NRC data, spent at least 48% of their time on union activities.
Ernst’s office also received data from NASA, showing that TFUT cost the agency $477,204 in fiscal year 2023 and $417,798 in fiscal year 2024. No similar breakdown was provided to Ernst’s office as of Friday morning.
Ernst also uncovered abuses relating to “official time,” with one employee moving to Florida and working in real estate while on the arrangement, while another employee claimed to be on “official time” while being jailed for drinking and driving.
Federal employees spent 2.6 million hours, the equivalent of almost three centuries, on union activities, costing taxpayers at least $135 million in fiscal year 2019, according to Ernst, who cited data from OPM. Unions also used at least $24 million in office space and supplies paid for by taxpayers.
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