In 2018, according to Social Security Administration records obtained by the Daily Wire’s Luke Rosiak, American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Council 220 President Witold Skwierczynski was banned from entering SSA offices across the country.
And according to SSA managers and employees who had worked there at the time and were interviewed by Mr. Rosiak, the SSA took this action against Mr. Skwierczynski because he had exposed himself in a photo sent to a female SSA employee.
For decades prior to this incident, Mr. Skwierczynski had been drawing full-time pay from the SSA “without actually providing any service” for Social Security beneficiaries, reported Mr. Rosiak in a March 3 Daily Wire investigative report.
Unfortunately, so-called “official time” deals, more accurately labeled as “union time,” are statutorily imposed under the “Civil Service Reform Act” (CSRA), signed by Big Labor Democrat President Jimmy Carter in 1978.
Effectively, it is the CSRA that made a “disgusting old man” (as one federal employee interviewed by Mr. Rosiak referred to Mr. Skwierczynski) a comanager over 22,000 SSA employees.
Even after he was banned from SSA offices due to his alleged gross misconduct, Mr. Skwierczynski continued for several months to get paid by federal taxpayers to “represent” the interests of SSA employees into whose workplace he was not allowed to enter!
According to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), in 2019, federal employees racked up a total of 2.6 million union time hours, getting paid a total of $135 million to represent a government union rather than carry out the missions of their agencies.
More recent federal union time data are not available, because President Biden, clearly acting at government union bosses’ behest, ordered the OPM to stop tracking and reporting how much union time costs taxpayers. But the current annual cost is almost certainly in excess of $200 million.
“For decades,” noted National Right to Work Committee Vice President Greg Mourad, “union bosses have been paid by the federal government to file ‘unfair labor practice’ claims against the government, often on behalf of unmotivated and/or unruly federal employees.
“This is a completely indefensible misuse of taxpayers’ money, and Congress must put a stop to it.
“The best solution would be for Congress to repeal the CSRA and terminate union monopoly bargaining over federal employees. But this effectively cannot happen without a 60-40 pro-Right to Work Senate majority ready to shut down an inevitable Big Labor filibuster, and no such majority exists at this time.”
Mr. Mourad continued:
“Fortunately, Right to Work supporters in Congress have an opportunity this year to use budget reconciliation — under which legislation cannot be filibustered and can thus be adopted with 51, rather than 60, Senate votes — to crack down on union time abuses and protect taxpayers.”
H.R.1210 and S.511, also known as the Protecting Taxpayer Wallets Act, would require Big Labor bosses to reimburse taxpayers for every hour of “official time” they receive, and also for the government-provided office space, parking spaces, and other special perks accorded to them under union time schemes.
National Right to Work Committee leaders and staff are now communicating with members of Congress to build support for this valuable reform, which is sponsored in the U.S. House by Scott Perry (R-Pa.) and in the U.S. Senate by Joni Ernst (R-Iowa).
On March 21, Committee Director of Federal Affairs Jace White emailed all House members to urge their support for requiring federal union officials “to reimburse taxpayers for government office space and salary money they currently receive for free.” On March 25, the House Oversight Committee voted to advance H.R.1210 in a 23-20 roll call.
Mr. Mourad concluded: “It is vitally important for the 2025-26 Congress to use the budget reconciliation process to put a stop to union time in federal workplaces.
“The fact is, practically all federal union bosses are heavily involved in partisan politics, and some of them are unsavory characters. American taxpayers shouldn’t have to cover their salaries.”
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