Donald Trump wants to finish draining the Swamp in his second term.
He needs help ending one of its worst practices.
And a top Republican wants to hand Donald Trump one weapon that struck fear in the Swamp.
Government employees do union work on the taxpayer’s dime
Federal employee unions are one of the most reliable allies of the Democrat Party.
They spend tens of millions of dollars every election cycle helping put Democrats in office.
And federal employee unions are the biggest defenders of the status quo in the Washington, D.C., Swamp.
President Donald Trump’s reforms, like ending remote work for federal employees, were fought tooth and nail by unions.
Federal employee unions have been freeloading off taxpayers for decades through a practice known as official time.
Federal employees are paid to do union business with taxpayer money during their day job.
Workers on official time are conducting union business in government buildings, with government resources, while they should be on the clock for their government job.
They could be doing a get-out-the-vote operation for the union while they’re being paid by taxpayers.
Unions are private organizations, and taxpayers are footing the bill for their operating costs.
Democrats have defended this little-known practice as a favor to the unions that helped elect them.
U.S. Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) and Representative Ben Cline (R-VA) want to put an end to this taxpayer-funded scam.
They introduced the No Union Time on the Taxpayer’s Dime Act, which would ban the practice of official time.
White House Office of Personnel Management (OPM) data estimated that official time costs taxpayers at least $160 million per year.
No one is sure how much time federal workers spend on official time because former President Joe Biden eliminated record keeping on it to help his Big Labor allies.
The last year of data on it was from 2019 under Trump.
Official time is how the Swamp takes care of its own
“The American taxpayer should not be obligated to pay federal employees to engage in union activities,” Lee’s office said in a statement.
OPM began tracking information on official time again in March after a four-year break under Biden.
An estimated 2.6 million working hours were spent by federal employees on official time in 2019.
Representative Scott Franklin (R-FL) introduced a bill to make reporting data about official time mandatory for the executive branch.
“American taxpayers shouldn’t have to fund union organizing, and federal employees should be working full time for the American people when they’re on the clock,” Lee said.
Cline said that taxpayer money shouldn’t be given to unions.
“Ending ‘official time’ is a commonsense step to ensure taxpayer dollars are used responsibly and to increase accountability across the federal workforce,” Cline explained. “Public funds should serve the American people, not private union interests.”
The bill comes after Trump issued an executive order banning monopoly bargaining by unions for national security agencies.
More than one million federal employees would be freed from being forced to have a union negotiate for them.
Government employee unions are one of the worst special interests slithering in the Washington, D.C., Swamp.
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