Sens. Joni Ernst (R-IA) and Michael Cloud (R-TX) have called on President Donald Trump’s Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to reveal the actual cost of federal employee "union time," a practice where government workers are paid while conducting union activities during work hours. The request, made in a joint statement, comes amid growing concerns over the financial impact of this practice on taxpayers. Ernst and Cloud argue that transparency is crucial to understanding the full extent of federal spending and are pushing for a thorough investigation into the practice's costs.
In a letter to acting Director Charles Ezell, Ernst and Cloud are continuing their fight to get Washington, D.C., back to work by asking OPM to resume data collection and reporting of taxpayer-funded union time, the practice of federal employees getting paid by taxpayers to lobby Congress for higher salaries.
“The Biden administration allowed federal employee unions to run wild, sticking taxpayers with the tab,” the letter read.
More from the letter:
The vast majority of Americans are expected to show up to work in person every day—whether they’re serving customers, teaching students, or caring for patients. Yet, during the Biden administration, only 6 percent of telework-eligible federal employees self-reported that they were going to the office full-time.1 Even so, federal employee unions are still improperly putting their thumbs on the scale—on the taxpayer’s dime—to fight for even more telework privileges.2 To make matters worse, President Biden allowed his agencies to finalize long-term collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) with lavish telework rights after President Trump’s transition team made it clear that one of his priorities would be to bring the federal workforce back to the office. The irony is glaring: while veterans, seniors, small business owners, and Americans in need of assistance were left on hold, federal bureaucrats were phoning it in.3
In fiscal year 2019, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) reported that federal employees engaged in union activities during official time cost taxpayers $135 million, with 2.6 million hours (or 296 years) spent on such activities. Additionally, agencies provided unions with $24 million worth of office space and supplies, much of which went unreimbursed. Ernst's investigations revealed that some bureaucrats claimed taxpayer-funded union time while in jail or enjoying extended vacations in Florida.
“Federal employees have been on a four-year vacation from work but were quite busy locking in pay raises and cushy telework agreements with the Biden administration,” Ernst said. “We need a full accounting of how many work hours and tax dollars have been spent to fully understand just how broken the federal workforce is. I am getting bureaucrats back to work and serving taxpayers instead of themselves.”
In March 2024, Ernst introduced the Taxpayer-Funded Union Time Transparency Act to monitor the total amount taxpayers subsidize for federal employee unions. This initiative is part of the senator's broader effort to reform and realign the federal workforce, driven by her position as chair of the Senate DOGE Caucus and her telework report.
“The Biden administration let bureaucrats lock in sweetheart union deals that kept them off the job and out of the office—while Americans have to show up to work every day,” Cloud said. "Federal employees work for the taxpayer and should not be spending their workday lobbying for even more perks on our dime. We’re asking the Trump Administration to review and put an end to these abuses so that these agencies begin serving the people who pay their salaries.”
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