The number of unionized federal employees jumped 20%, or nearly 80,000 individuals, in just one year, according to data recently touted by the White House Task Force on Organizing and Empowering Workers. Don’t let the name fool you. As the increase in the number of federal employees seeking legal representation shows, the task force has helped funnel those employees into a system that empowers union officials, not workers.
Created just three months into Joe Biden’s presidency, the task force had in mind 300,000 federal employees who could have joined a union but did not. Biden endorsed his nearly 70 recommendations to “reduce barriers to organizing workers” last year.
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These proposals spurred more than 100 agency initiatives, including a taxpayer-funded Department of Labor marketing campaign promote resources “on the union advantage and examples of successful organizing” and policy changes at other agencies “enabling workers to speak and hear from union organizers in their workplace” and “streamline[ing] the payroll deduction process for union dues.
By using the estimated contributions of the largest union of federal employees as an example, the new union members the Biden administration takes credit for could represent between $37 million and $46 million in annual dues revenue. And as these employees walk through the union door, union officials and government agencies seem determined to slam it behind them.
For employees who believe this arrangement violates their rights, litigation may be the only way out.
In the past year, the Fairness Center, the public interest law firm of which I am president, filed 36 cases on behalf of federal employees involving 16 unions and eight federal agencies. Ashley Kjarbo, a New York IRS employee, is one of our clients.
Facing financial difficulties last year, Kjarbo filed a form to resign from her membership in the National Union of Treasury Employees, or NTEU. “Please we need help,” she wrote to the union. “I have two children and I can barely afford to put food on the table.” But the NTEU refused to process her resignation until months later, and only if she could get the approval and initials of the local union president. As she discovered, these roadblocks are ripe for abuse.
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Kjarbo repeatedly followed and cited a Trump-era rule passed by the Federal Labor Relations Authority, or FLRA — an independent board overseeing federal government labor relations — that allows federal employees who have served in the less than a year to revoke their union membership and stop paying. contributions at any time. But the president of the union still rejected his resignation.
As Kjarbo later found out through a filing request, the union president then emailed her IRS supervisor, calling Kjarbo’s financial situation a “fabricated story of misfortune” and asking help to prevent him from resigning.
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A few weeks later, Kjarbo’s supervisor accused her of “discourteous and unprofessional” behavior, gave her a written warning and threatened her with further disciplinary action if she continued to attempt to quit.
To defend himself, Kjarbo filed unfair labor practice charges with the FLRA against the taxman and union. But most employees have little hope of holding unions accountable with such accusations. According a report from the nonprofit Americans for Fair Treatment, FLRA records show 1,211 charges brought by individuals against unions since 2015. Only 21, or less than 2%, resulted in enforcement action or to a settlement.
Our clients also discovered that a FLRA had not issued an unfair labor practice ruling since the 1980s, and no form was available to file a complaint.
Despite the odds, the FLRA found merit in Kjarbo’s allegations and accused the IRS of an unfair labor practice. The agency has set up, committing to inform more than 2,500 of her colleagues that this was a mistake and that she would not interfere with, restrict or coerce our employees in exercising their rights. Our clients have reached several settlements with unions on similar charges.
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This is progress, but the FLRA propose to reject its current union quit rule to make it even more difficult for employees to exit; it would prevent all federal employees, regardless of length of service, from leaving their union except for a short period of time, once a year. This new resignation restriction, initiated by the NTEU itself, would come just as a host of employees would join the ranks of the unions and hand over millions in dues. For our growing list of federal clients, this is no coincidence.
Nathan McGrath is president and general counsel of the Fairness Center, a nonprofit public interest law firm representing those injured by public sector union officials.
Syndicated with permission by RealClearWire.
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