AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka once called a corporate campaign the “death of a thousand cuts.” He was referring to a type of union organizing strategy that uses an arsenal of legal, political, and public relations attacks to wear down a company’s resistance to unionization. These tactics are intended to… Read More
(Labor Watch, November 2011, PDF here) Title V of the U.S. Code allows federal government employees to do union work while on the job. This is known as “official time” and it allows unionized government workers to perform union duties unrelated to their jobs while still being paid their government salary. There is no law or regulation requiring the government to determine and report how much time union members spend on union work at the public’s expense. The amount of official time awarded to employees performing union duties varies greatly. Cases are decided by the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA). The FLRA has ruled that some government employees can devote 100 percent of their time to union representation activities despite receiving a government paycheck. In multiple rulings, the FLRA has ordered the use of official time for lobbying activities. In a 2001 case it ordered that the Department of Defense award official time to the Association of Civilian Technicians (ACT) for union duties including “visiting, phoning and writing to Congress in support of legislation which would impact the working conditions of employees represented by ACT.” Read More