Lawmakers demand answers after federal workers hold in-person rally to protest in-person work

Normally, Republicans would celebrate the fact that federal workers showed up at their office.

But the employees who came to the Labor Department’s Boston office last week weren’t there to work — they were there, in person, to protest having to show up for in-person work.

Members of the American Federation of Government Employees rallied to demand the department continue the telework policy that’s been in place since the pandemic.

Republicans saw a delicious irony.

“Clearly, these employees know how much more effective they can be when they show up in person. I just wish they had the same level of dedication to serving Americans that they do to serving themselves,” Sen. Joni Ernst, Iowa Republican, and Rep. C. Scott Franklin, Florida Republican, wrote in a letter to acting Labor Secretary Julie Su.

Telework has become a major battleground between the administration and federal workers, with the White House ordering agencies to get their employees back to offices and the federal labor unions resisting.

“Telework has been such a positive for our work staff. One, work-life balance. But just more productivity, less time spent getting ready for work, in traffic, getting to work,” Joe Oosterhout, one of the protesting union workers, said last week, according to WGBH in Boston. 

AFGE Local 948 organized the rally, which the news station reported drew about 35 people.

“If your employees can show up to the office to protest, they can show up to the office to work,” the GOP lawmakers said in their letter to the Labor Department. 

Andrew Huddleston, a spokesperson for AFGE, said the two lawmakers’ criticism missed the mark.

“Congress isn’t in session right now, lawmakers are back home in their districts across the country, yet the volume of opportunistic, ill-informed, partisan attacks like this hasn’t diminished one iota. Seems as though telework is working just fine,” he said.

Ms. Ernst and Mr. Franklin, in their letter, demanded answers on whether any of the employees who showed up were on what’s known as “official time” — when they are collecting government pay while engaged in union duties, rather than their actual federal roles.

It’s an issue that Ms. Ernst and Mr. Franklin have been probing for some time.

They have written legislation that would force agencies to report publicly on how much taxpayers are paying for official time.

The government used to report those numbers on its own.

But the Biden administration’s Office of Personnel Management has stopped releasing the numbers. The last report was issued in 2020, under the Trump administration, and covered 2019.

OPM spokesman Viet Tran confirmed that 2019 was the latest work but declined to answer questions about why the Biden administration has not produced any updates.

Official time is not supposed to include union building, but it can include handling official grievances, representing employees in disciplinary proceedings, or lobbying for workplace and policy changes.

The theory is that because federal unions represent all employees, not just members, those on official time are working on behalf of the agency, so taxpayers should foot the bill.

The Trump administration, in its final report, said it had cut official time by more than 25%. But without any updates, it’s not clear what’s happened under President Biden.

“From failing to return to the office to wasting time on the job, we cannot allow the Biden administration to disregard critical reporting requirements and transparency measures,” Ms. Ernst said.

Her new bill would require each agency to submit annual reports with all the numbers, including total employees granted official time, a reason for each designation and the costs associated with it.

The legislation’s backers say it comes at a particularly tricky moment, when the federal labor unions are feverishly pushing to preserve pandemic-era telework policies that, according to the lawmakers, have left some federal office buildings nearly vacant.

Other Republicans have also demanded OPM restart its reporting, too.

“The American people deserve to know how much ‘official time’ is being conducted and funded by their hard-earned taxpayer dollars,” wrote Sen. Marsha Blackburn, Tennessee Republican, in a letter late last year joined by nine colleagues.

Darrell West, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told The Washington Times earlier this year that it’s unclear why OPM stopped the reporting. He said it should start again.

“The public deserves regular updates so people can assess its usage. There is a clear justification for public information since it involves the use of taxpayer money. There is no reason why such information is not publicly available,” he said.