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Federal Daily News

OPM: Feds using more official time for union business

A soon-to-be released report by Office of Personnel Management shows that the amount of time federal workers spent using work hours to conduct union business increased more than 13 percent over a one-year period, Federal Times reports.

That compares with a 2 percent increase  from 2009 to 2010, according to the report. Feds spent about 3.4 million hours conducting union business in 2011, costing agencies $155 million.

According to the article, the agency did not specify a reason for the increase -- nor when the report will be released -- but one expert contends that changes to labor-management forums that took into effect in 2009 and 2010 could be the cause.


 

Reader comments

Tue, Jan 15, 2013 David

Someone should called the Fraud Waste and Abuse hotline. Labor Relations (LR), & many in management, are a waste and drain of resoruces. LR in the Health & Human Services (HHS) are mostly contractors that advise management to violate federal laws & contracts, thus wasting government resources as others try to get them to follow the laws & contracts.

Wed, Nov 28, 2012 Michele Illinois

"Someone should called the Fraud Waste and Abuse hotline. Unions are a waste and drain of resoruces."


Really?....because after amost 12 years of being a Federal Employee I am for the first time *SERIOUSLY* considering joining our AFGE Local Union. Management is so XXXed-up around here (and that would be the Command Leadership which includes the Military Officers) that instead of fixing the processes and focusing on improving the operating procedures, they waste resources on witch hunts and punitive actions against the employees. So if you want some fraud, waste, and abuse to report, please *STEP AWAY* from the Unions!

Wed, Nov 28, 2012 Susan S Pastin US Railroad Retirement Board

If it weren't for unions, we'd all be beggers! BUT the comments from the retired military vet on military fighting aircraft maintenance make sense. I'm a proud union member, but I believe in efficiency - especially with precious tax dollars paid by the people we're hired to serve.

Tue, Nov 27, 2012

Management has become more flagerant in violating contracts & the Law during the last 4 years, therefore, there are more disputes as unions try to balance out bad management.

Tue, Nov 27, 2012 HappilyRetired USMC,NC

I cannot comment on why government wide the union is needing more time to represent the workforce, but at the facility from which I retired from, the reasons are as plain as the nose on my old face. The workforce that is mostly made up of inexperienced non-vets, unaccustomed to working on military fighting aircraft in the military governed military aircraft overhaul program, where if they were at a private company, it would have long since gone bankrupt. The last few years before I retired three years ago, there were way too many employees to work on too few aircraft programs and where most workers were only provided with enough legitimate work projects to justify one of the eight hours they were on the clock and from what I'm hearing the workload has continued to deminish. They've hired so many young non-vets that they're handing out VSIP's like candy to get the older "vets" to retire... on time at their official age (I know, I got one at age 55 with 36 years of service). Our government needs to cut the fat by laying off the unnecessary young, non-vet, unproductive, inexperienced, excess workers and consolidate the remaining and continuing to deminish workload to fewer facilities where a smaller, trained & experienced workforce can at least pay for the cost of employing them! This will save on much union official time because, an experienced all vet workforce (as the program was originally designed to be in the 1940's) that are hired with the skills to perform the job on day one and know how to come to work, follow orders and perform a high quality product each and every day without all the wineing that these facilities current employees are causing, with poor performance and lack of military organizational knowledge! Go back to the pre-vietnam requirement of, want a government job, show me your DD-214 and we'll let you fill out an application. If the government were to do this, there'd be no continued need for union representation!

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