But GOP’s Big Labor Appeasers Want to Bail Out Union Monopolists
Federal appellate courts have now handed down two significant victories for the Trump Administration and other opponents of government union-boss special privileges across the country.
On August 1, a three-judge panel for the normally pro-Big Labor Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit unanimously refused to quash President Trump’s Executive Order 14251, which seeks to end union monopoly-bargaining control over 75% of the currently unionized federal workforce. The Ninth Circuit’s decision follows a May decision by a D.C. Circuit panel to reject a similar bid by union lawyers to halt implementation of the executive order.
The cynically mislabeled “Civil Service Reform Act” (CSRA) of 1978 authorizes government union bosses to seize “exclusive representation” privileges over the vast majority of America’s roughly 2.4 million civilian federal employees.
But one CSRA provision empowers the President to prohibit union monopoly bargaining over federal employees charged with defending national security.
Government Union Monopolies Are Undemocratic As Well as Corrupt
President Trump properly cited that power to issue his executive order, said National Right to Work Committee President Mark Mix. In a letter to Congress, he explained: “Union monopoly bargaining in the public sector is a corrupt practice that should be ended entirely, and President Trump was right to issue E.O.14251 and reduce the number of government workers subject to union monopoly-bargaining agreements.
“Monopoly bargaining gives unelected union officials significant leverage over public policy.
“Instead of government agencies’ staffing policies being set directly by representatives chosen by the American people, those elected representatives must instead ‘negotiate’ with union bosses over agency operations.”
Mr. Mix highlighted how monopoly bargaining undermines government operation:
“The outgoing Biden Administration rushed to ink as many union agreements as possible because it knew that the incoming Trump Administration had been elected by the American people after promising to change how federal agencies operate.
“Biden officials knew that union monopoly agreements would slow down the implementation of changes that they opposed but which Americans supported. There is no better illustration of the way in which union monopoly bargaining subverts the Democratic process.”
In response to the August 1 ruling upholding E.O.14251, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and several other federal agencies have announced they are terminating monopoly-bargaining agreements that have controlled hundreds of thousands of federal employees.
Trump Agencies Cite Deals’ Exorbitant Cost
The VA announcement cited the tremendous costs of Big Labor monopoly bargaining, including the cost of “official time,” the practice of allowing union officials to perform union business while on the clock as government workers.
“In 2024 alone, over 1,900 VA bargaining-unit employees spent more than 750,000 hours of work on taxpayer-funded union time — including some who are paid more than $200,000 a year,” the agency said in a press release.
Federal union bosses have gotten special financial perks that go beyond official time. The VA reports that “more than 187,000 square feet of VA’s office and clinical space is currently being used by union representatives, free of charge. This has cost VA millions of dollars in lost rent and expenses for union bosses’ government phones and computer equipment.” Fortunately, this arrangement is now being terminated.
On August 22, the VA announced it was redirecting nearly $45 million in funds saved by ending “union time” and other subsidies for federal unions to the provision of care for veterans.
Government union bosses have exploited their power at the VA to enrich themselves, while making agency operations less efficient by protecting bad employees. For example, a VA caregiver named Afolabi Olubo was assigned to regularly fill out observation reports on acute psychiatric patients.
One of the patients he was assigned to monitor escaped the facility, yet Mr. Olubo marked the missing patient present four times before the escape was discovered. VA managers sought to fire Mr. Olubo for making false reports that left an at-risk patient alone and unaccounted for, but since he was a dues-paying member of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), union bosses sought successfully to reduce his punishment to a one-day suspension.
Announcing the termination of the VA’s bargaining contracts with the AFGE and other unions, VA Secretary Doug Collins said, “Too often, unions that represent VA employees fight against the best interests of Veterans while protecting and rewarding bad workers.”
Big Labor-Aligned Congressmen Seek to Nullify Trump Order
E.O.14251 could soon bring needed changes to dozens of federal agencies. However, union lawyers’ judicial efforts to overturn it are continuing, and Big Labor supporters in Congress are seeking to eliminate it.
A bill to nullify the executive order, H.R.2550, was introduced in the House of Representatives by Democratic Rep. Jared Golden (Maine). At the time this Newsletter went to print, it was cosponsored by 215 Democrats and seven renegade Republicans, including Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.) and Chris Smith (N.J.), the only two Republicans to cosponsor the so-called PRO Act, a bill that would eliminate every state Right to Work law in the country.
With 222 cosponsors in total, H.R.2550 has enough support to pass on the House floor. “It’s highly unlikely that House Speaker Mike Johnson [R-La.] would voluntarily put a bill on the floor that nullifies a Trump executive order,” said Mr. Mix.
“The Big Labor-aligned representatives who support this bill will need to get 218 signatures on what’s called a discharge petition if they want to force a vote on the floor. I hope it will be a bridge too far for the Republicans who support this bill to defy not only President Trump, but also the GOP House speaker, by signing the petition. We’ll see how far their loyalty to Big Labor extends.”
In his letter to Congress, Mr. Mix warned federal lawmakers not to support the Golden bill, and to oppose language some members are seeking to insert into defense spending bills that would nullify the executive order for Pentagon employees:
“I urge you to oppose both these efforts to undermine E.O.14251 and to work toward putting a permanent end to the corrupt and undemocratic practice of government-sector unionization.”
This article was originally published in our monthly newsletter. Go here to access previous newsletter posts.
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