Federal Employee Union Membership is Up 20%
Since implementation of a number of pro-labor policies a year ago, federal employee unions gained 80,000 new dues-paying members.
By ERICH WAGNER , http://govexec.com | MARCH 20, 2023 05:21 PM ET
UNIONS
Vice President Kamala Harris’ office last week touted early progress in the Biden administration’s effort to strengthen the federal workforce by improving worker empowerment, boasting a sizeable increase in the number of federal employees who are dues-paying union members.
In February 2022, the White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment, chaired by Harris and then-Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, issued its first report, which contained more than 70 recommendations for federal agencies to make it easier for employees in both the federal and private sectors to organize or join a union.
The task force asked federal agencies to foster collaborative relationships with their union partners, involve labor organizations in predecisional policy discussions, and remove barriers from unions trying to increase their membership or organize new bargaining units. The group recommended that the Office of Personnel Management instruct agencies to provide information on whether job openings are represented by unions and encourage agencies to provide unions more opportunities to communicate with new hires.
In a blog post last week, the vice president’s office announced that just a year after agencies began implementing the task force’s recommendations, the initiative is already paying dividends: over the last year, nearly 80,000 federal employees have joined a union, increasing the total number of dues paying union members at federal agencies by 20%. And in the private sector, petitions for union representation increased 53% from fiscal 2021 to fiscal 2022, while overall union membership grew by 273,000 last year.
More: https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2023/03/federal-employee-union-membership-20/384205/
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