The Biden administration has laid out a series of initiatives regarding unions in the federal workplace, some of which it previously had signaled or launched, as part of a nationwide program under an executive order of last April to support “worker power, worker organizing, and collective bargaining.”
“The federal government should be a model employer that facilitates its own employees joining or organizing a union, if that is what employees choose to do. Also, when federal employees organize a union, they should have an effective voice in workplace issues through their union and federal management should work closely with these unions to solve workplace issues in a manner that advances agencies’ missions and produces high-performance workplaces,” says a report from a task force created by that order.
The report notes that—aside from the Postal Service with its higher rates of union membership—some 835,000 of 2.1 million executive branch employees are in bargaining units but that there are more than 300,000 federal workers who are eligible to be represented by a union but are not. Further, only a third of those who are represented by a union are dues-paying members, it says.
The document lists a number of initiatives for the OPM, among them policies previously announced encouraging agencies to include information about whether a position is in a bargaining unit and the relevant union in job opportunity announcements; offer their unions more opportunities to communicate with new hires during onboarding; and regularly remind current employees of their legal rights under federal labor law. It also references initiatives under way to expand bargaining rights for TSA screeners and to improve pay and benefits for federal wildland firefighters.
It also commits the administration to changes including: providing unions with employee names and work email addresses and access to agency intranets; simplifying the process for employees to elect union dues withholding from their pay; additional guidance for managers and supervisors regarding union and employee rights under the law; and reviews of whether positions have been incorrectly excluded from bargaining unit eligibility.
The report also calls for a “whole-of-government communications strategy to amplify the administration’s commitment to empower and inform federal workers of their rights, including their right to join a union, as well as to highlight the benefits that unions can provide.”
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