The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is set to resume its reporting on the time and financial resources federal employees dedicate to union activities, following a pause during the Biden administration.
This decision comes in response to a request from Republican Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa. Ernst, alongside Republican Representative Michael Cloud of Texas, advocated for the reinstatement of these reports, emphasizing the need for transparency regarding taxpayer-funded union time (TFUT), often referred to as "official time." This push coincided with Ernst's introduction of the "Protecting Taxpayers Wallets Act of 2025" on February 11.
According to the Daily Caller, Ernst expressed her approval of the Trump administration's decision to restart these reports, as detailed in a February 27 memo from OPM Acting Director Charles Eskell. The memo instructed federal agencies to begin tracking TFUT once more. "I am thrilled to see the Trump administration restart the reporting of taxpayer-funded union time, so the American people know just how much money bureaucrats are paid not to work," Ernst remarked to the Daily Caller News Foundation.
She further asserted, "Federal employees should be serving taxpayers, not themselves, during the workday. If they want to engage in union activity, they need to refund taxpayers for every last penny."
The memo mandates that federal agencies disclose various details, including the job titles of employees involved in union activities during taxpayer-funded hours, whether these activities were conducted via telework, the total hours spent on union tasks, and the use of government resources and office space.
Ernst had initially requested this information in December, and her office subsequently received data from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) concerning TFUT for fiscal years 2023 and 2024.
The NRC data revealed that a project manager, earning $171,469 annually, devoted over 99.5% of their time to union work in fiscal year 2023. Similarly, another project manager, with a salary of $166,393, spent an equivalent portion of their time on union activities in fiscal year 2024.
Additionally, three reliability and risk engineers, each earning at least $163,000 annually, allocated at least 48% of their time to union tasks during the same period.
Ernst has previously highlighted instances of misuse related to "official time," citing cases where an employee relocated to Florida to work in real estate while on the arrangement, and another who claimed "official time" while incarcerated following a DUI arrest. In fiscal year 2019, federal employees reportedly spent 2.6 million hours on union activities, equating to nearly three centuries, at a taxpayer cost of at least $135 million. Furthermore, unions utilized at least $24 million worth of taxpayer-funded office space and supplies.
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