From The Guardian:
Workers at the Social Security Administration (SSA) say that the Trump administration has imposed a new contract on their 45,000 workers that could effectively shut down their union and are warning that the same thing could be tried elsewhere in the federal government as part of a crackdown on the labor movement.
A federal panel, consisting mainly of Trump-appointed members, issued a decision in May to impose a new union contract for the 45,000 federal employees at the SSA. The move came despite a federal judge’s decision last year to strike down most provisions in similarly issued orders for violating collective bargaining rights for federal employees. ...
“If the agency is successful in implementing this panel order, it will decimate our ability to represent workers all over the country,” said Rich Couture, an agency employee for more than 30 years and the union’s chief negotiator.
The provisions in the new contract will reduce the time allotted to SSA employees for union activity from 250,000 hours annually to 50,000 hours and ban all workers from using government property to conduct union activities, such as office spaces and government emails and holding files on government computers or in offices. It will also grant management the discretion to eliminate remote work. ...
“We’ve never seen anything like it,” said David Cann, director of bargaining for the AFGE. “As we’ve been in negotiation with the Trump administration, we’ve seen a level of hostility toward labor unions that is unique and more coordinated from what we’ve seen with other administrations, even Republican administrations that are philosophically opposed to the mission of labor and the empowerment of workers.” ...
“Once Trump signed those executive orders, all employees who were union representatives lost the right to hold files in their offices, lost the right to represent employees unless we used our own personal leave or leave without pay and even with that management wouldn’t approve leave to represent people,” said Sherry Jackson, a social security field office employee in Connecticut who also works as a union representative in her region. ...
4 comments:
i still don't understand why SSA should pay for the unions. Union employees pay dues...if the union wants to represent the employees, THEY should hire people to do that. It makes zero sense for SSA to be paying for that representation. Even 50,000 hours is 25 full-time employees PAID FOR BY SSA. Crazy
And, at taxpayer expense in all sorts of ways, the unions usually represent the poorest performing employees... Federal employees have civil service protections so the additional layer of unions is really ridiculous. If the general public actually read the union contracts that "protect" employees they would be mortified... an example - employees telework three days per week but do not have to turn on the instant messenger so they can be contacted by the office...and the union would argue that management can do a home visit, call the employee on their soft phone (good luck with that horrible piece of equipment that you cannot understand anyone on) or by email... how about just coming to work... Google, Xerox and many of the larger companies did away with telework... SSA should consider a roll back of that disaster as well... the taxpayer might get better service if the employees were in the office serving the public rather than at home not answering soft phones...
Telework was a noble experiment. In the public sector it does not work well, meaning for the people who need services best interest. AFGE always said it was an employee benefit. No mention of better service to the public. A top employee will always work hard at the office or home. Anyone else, meh. Makes things even harder for those in the office. Had a long time employee whose connection went down mid morn. Took leave for the day because they were still in PJs and did not want to shower and face the crowds at the office.
The union actually does some good when local management steps over the line on an occasional issue. Not sure what they do the rest of the time as it seems some of their ideas are really pie in the sky ones.
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