Taxpayers spent $157 million in fiscal 2012 for federal workers to not do their jobs.
Instead, those federal employees spent a total of 3.4 million hours doing work for their labor unions. That’s up about 1 percent to $1.6 million and 44,000 hours from the previous year.
That’s according to an annual report, released Tuesday, by the Office of Personnel Management that tracks the use of “official time” — bureaucrat-speak for work time given to federal workers who also hold union leadership positions so they can engage in contract negotiations, workplace grievances and any other labor-related activity.
While on official time, those workers are still paid for their regular government jobs. So taxpayers are effectively paying them to work for their unions.
The practice, first allowed under a 1979 civil service reform, is meant to compensate public employee unions for restrictions that most federal labor-management contracts put on labor activities, such as the ability to go on strike. About 60 percent of federal workers are represented by unions.
The annual amount of official time hit a low of 2.7 million hours and $113 million in costs in 2007 but has steadily risen since then. In 2009, President Obama signed an executive order that encouraged partnerships between government agencies and labor groups to “improve the productivity and effectiveness of the federal government.”
Both sides have been hard at work since then, said Jackie Simon, policy director for the American Federation of Government Employees, explaining the increase in official time.
“You missed the point of the report if the only thing you got out of it was the percentage increase. I think there has been a concerted effort on the part of unions and the agency management to improve morale and productivity,” Simon said. “The administration has made a point of enhancing employee engagement.”
It is not clear how the official time is being used, though. As OPM notes, the term is flexible and can apply to any union-related activity “so long as the agency and the union agree that the amount of time is reasonable, necessary and in the public interest.”
Simon said it was impossible to say what was the most common activity done during official time. “It varies tremendously by agency.”
Matt Patterson, executive director of the conservative Center for Worker Freedom, said the cozy relationship between public-sector unions and federal agencies was suspect at best.
“People are under the impression that tax dollars go to pay public employees to do public business, but that’s not always so,” Patterson said. “It all amounts to a huge public payoff from elected officials to their Big Labor campaign contributors.”
The biggest spender was the Department of Veterans Affairs, which reported it paid out $46.9 million to workers on official time in fiscal 2012, up from $42.6 million the previous year. The increase came prior to a series of scandalous revelations earlier this year about the shoddy care it was giving to veterans.
Also high on the list:
• Treasury Department, which paid out $25.4 million, down from $27.3 million the previous year.
• Transportation Department, which paid out $17.3 million, down from $17.7 million the previous year.
• Defense Department, which paid out $13.5 million, down from $14 million the previous year.
• Social Security Administration, which paid out $10.9 million, up from $9.9 million the previous year.
• Department of Homeland Security, which paid out $8.1 million, up from $7.8 million the previous year.
• Justice Department, which paid out $7 million, roughly even with the previous year.
• Agriculture Department, which paid out $4.8 million, up from $4.6 million the previous year.
• Housing and Urban Development, which paid out $3 million, up from $2.7 million the previous year.
• Environmental Protection Agency, which paid out $2.8 million, up from $2.6 million the previous year.
• Labor Department, which paid out $2.8 million, down from $3.7 million the previous year.
Though it fell on the middle of the spending list, HUD reported authorizing the most official time hours, at more than 50,000, up almost 7 percent from the previous year. It was followed by the Environmental Protection Agency, which authorized just under 43,000, up more than 9 percent.
