Bill prohibiting union time on taxpayers’ dime would extend Trump EO to entire federal workforce

Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rep. Ben Cline (R-Va.) introduced companion versions of the No Union Time on Taxpayers’ Dime Act on April 7.

This bill, which calls for eliminating taxpayer funding of federal employees working for their unions, is more relevant now than when first introduced in 2024.

That’s because the Trump administration not only reinstated agency requirements to measure and report what’s called official time; it also signed an executive order precluding wide swaths of federal agencies and offices from engaging in collective bargaining agreements with unions and preventing federal workers in those agencies from engaging in official time.

Official time is Work-for-a-Union time on the taxpayer’s dime

Official time is essentially unlimited paid union leave.

Under the banner of official time, federal employees are dismissed from their jobs—sometimes, up to 100% of their paid time—to work for their union instead of doing the jobs they were hired to perform.

With the average federal employee receiving almost $163,000 in total compensation (including $106,400 in pay and $56,600 in benefits), the time federal employees spend working for their union can add up quickly.

The House Committee on Oversight and Accountability discovered that 1,030 Social Security Administration employees spent a total of 242,237 hours on official time in Fiscal Year 2023. This cost taxpayers $15.1 million, including $1.43 million to pay 14 employees who spent 100% of their time working for their union. Meanwhile, senior citizens across the country were struggling to get in touch with Social Security Administration employees and unable to get in-person appointments at their local Social Security Administration offices.

VA nurses working for unions, not the vets

The Veterans Administration, or VA, is another frequent user of official time, including nurses who spent 100% of their time working for their union instead of treating veterans. The Institute for the America Worker sought a Freedom of Information Act request on the VA’s use of official time, but the “Department of Veterans Affairs responded in part with a ‘no records’ response and refused to provide additional records responsive to the FOIA request.”

As of 2019—the last data available—the VA had 1,895 employees spend a total of 324,105 hours on official time—the equivalent of about 175 full-time employees. The actual figure is almost certainly much higher today as the Biden administration reversed the first Trump administration’s executive order preventing federal employees from spending more than 25% of their work hours on official time. Meanwhile, Senator Ernst’s Out of Office Report found that, “[t]housands of calls from veterans seeking mental health care go unanswered.”?

The equivalent of 2,000 full-time employees?

We don’t know how many federal employees, hours, and taxpayer dollars went towards official time during the Biden-Harris administration, but if it’s anything close to that of the Obama-Biden administration, it was likely the equivalent of about 2,000 full-time equivalent employees at a cost of about $320 million per year.

President Trump’s executive order will, dependent on legal challenges, prevent the use of official time for roughly half of federal employees, but as an executive order, it is only assured through the end of Trump’s term in January 2029.

The No Union Time on Taxpayers’ Dime Act would codify an end to official time across the entire federal workforce, requiring federal employees who want to work for their unions to do so on their own time and own expense.

Sen. Ernst’s approach: make the unions pay

Sen. Ernst’s (R-Iowa) similar bill, Protecting Taxpayers’ Wallets Act of 2025, would require federal employee unions to reimburse the federal government for federal employees’ time spent working for their union, as well as for federal resources (such as office buildings and equipment) provided for union activities.

By generating new revenues to the government, as opposed to restricting government spending on federal unions, Sen. Ernst’s version could potentially be included in the reconciliation bill that Congress hopes to pass this year.

Both approaches protect taxpayers

Neither of these bills would change the activities that federal employees’ unions can engage in. They would just require the unions—instead of taxpayers—to foot the bill for their activities.

Both bills would, however, help limit the unions’ practice of protecting from disciplinary action federal employees who cannot or will not do their jobs, and of bargaining for tedious things like the height of cubicle panels and the right to wear spandex at work. That’s because, when faced with having to fund their own payrolls and operations, federal employee unions would have to limit their activities to things their members are willing to pay full price to receive.

[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]