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No one knows how much taxpayers are spending to negotiate with federal unions, and President-elect Donald Trump can correct that injustice. Building on reforms from his first administration and backed by a new Department of Government Efficiency, he could direct every federal agency to report how much it spends working with state unions, something no agency has ever done. Disclosure would ensure transparency and accountability for the American people, who would surely be shocked to learn what the federal government is bargaining for and how much it is costing.
As director in the first term of President Ronald Reagan US Office of Personnel Management (OPM), I’ve seen firsthand how costly the federal collective bargaining process is to taxpayers – and how it’s almost entirely out of the public eye. Trump also knows it’s a problem, having issued an executive order in 2018 ordering federal agencies to disclose union benefits, which OPM calculated to be $163 million a year.
Still, that executive order — which President Joe Biden rescinded immediately after taking office — was just the beginning. It is even more important to examine what is likely to be a greater cost to taxpayers: How much the federal bureaucracy spends on negotiations with unions, administering union contracts and otherwise negotiating with unions in the federal workforce, which numbers more than a million taxpayer-funded workers.
To be sure, union benefits deserve attention. Most notably, union representatives often do union work such as negotiating contracts or fighting disciplinary action on the taxpayers’ dime. Some federally paid workers spend 100% of their time doing union work, which means these public servants are not serving the public.
The federal government spends $163 million a year on union benefits, but no one knows how much more it spends on union negotiations. FILE: The US Office of Personnel Management building in Washington, June 5, 2015 (REUTERS/Gary Cameron)
Unions also routinely get free or discounted access to federal property. At the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Salem, Virginia, the government union was given half a hospital wing — more than 5,000 square feet, with a kitchen, private bathrooms and an outdoor patio, mostly for the benefit of the union president.
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However, the negotiation price deserves just as much attention. What little information exists reflects significant spending on picayune issues. Last fall, North Carolina Republican Rep. Virginia Foxx, then chairwoman of the House Education and Workforce Committee, documented government unions stalling negotiations with federal agencies.
These include haggling over the height of partition table panels, requiring designated smoking areas on federal property to be tobacco-free, and recognizing employees’ right to wear spandex. Americans pay for every second that federal officials sit across from their union counterparts debating such issues, as well as all the associated travel expenses, paperwork and legal hoopla.
A new report from Institute for the American Worker, entitled “Transparency Needed in the Federal Collective Bargaining Process,” sheds additional light on those costs. The institute sent Freedom of Information Act requests to 28 federal agencies seeking data on costs related to collective bargaining. Twenty-one responded, although none had complete records.
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The Small Business Administration spent more than $6 million on salaries for staff involved in collective bargaining in 2022 and 2023. The Department of Labor spent more than $1 million on travel expenses. Considering hundreds of federal agencies, these numbers are a fraction of the total cost to taxpayers.
For the benefit of taxpayers, the facts must come out. Trump can ensure real transparency by requiring agencies to annually disclose how much they spend on federal collective bargaining and the impact of such spending on government efficiency and effectiveness. Americans deserve to know how much they are paying to negotiate with unions over wearing spandex, smoking cigarettes, and everything else that has nothing to do with public service.
