Trump Admin Agrees To Put Taxpayer-Funded Union Work Back Under Microscope After Joni Ernst Request

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) will again report on how much time and money federal employees spend on union activity after a hiatus during the Biden administration following a request from Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa.

Ernst and Republican Rep. Michael Cloud of Texas urged OPM to resume reporting taxpayer-funded union time (TFUT), also known as “official time,” when Ernst introduced the “Protecting Taxpayers’ Wallets Act of 2025” on Feb. 11. Ernst praised the Trump administration for the decision, as revealed in a Feb. 27 memo provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation, in which OPM Acting Director Charles Eskell directed agencies to resume tracking TFUT.

“I am thrilled to see the Trump administration restart the reporting of taxpayer-funded union time, so the American people know just how much money bureaucrats are paid not to work,” Ernst told the DCNF. “Federal employees should be serving taxpayers, not themselves, during the workday. If they want to engage in union activity, they need to refund taxpayers for every last penny.”

The Feb. 27 memo orders federal agencies to provide information on the job positions held by employees carrying out union activities on taxpayer time, whether or not they engaged in telework, the total number of hours employees spent on union time and information on the use of government materials and office space.

Ernst requested that government agencies provide information on TFUT in December. Ernst’s office received information from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) about TFUT for fiscal years 2023 and 2024.

The data from NRC showed one employee, a project manager, who earned $171,469 a year, spent over 99.5% of their time on union work in fiscal year 2023, while a project manager earning $166,393 per year also spent over 99.5% of their time on union activities in fiscal year 2024. Three other employees, listed as reliability and risk engineers, earned at least $163,000 a year in the NRC data and spent at least 48% of their time on union activities during fiscal years 2023 and 2024.

Ernst previously uncovered abuses relating to “official time,” with one employee moving to Florida and working in real estate while on the arrangement, while another employee claimed to be on “official time” while being jailed following an arrest for drinking and driving.

Federal employees spent 2.6 million hours, the equivalent of almost three centuries, on union activities, costing taxpayers at least $135 million in fiscal year 2019, according to Ernst, who cited data from OPM. Unions also used at least $24 million in office space and supplies paid for by taxpayers.

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