{"id":16130,"date":"2025-04-07T20:18:51","date_gmt":"2025-04-07T20:18:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=16130"},"modified":"2025-04-07T21:01:42","modified_gmt":"2025-04-07T21:01:42","slug":"gop-unveils-bill-to-end-taxpayer-funded-union-organizing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=16130","title":{"rendered":"GOP Unveils Bill to End Taxpayer-Funded Union Organizing"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/thestarnewsnetwork.com\/2025\/04\/07\/gop-unveils-bill-to-end-taxpayer-funded-union-organizing\/<\/a><\/p>\n

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by Adam Pack<\/h5>\n

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Republican Utah Sen. Mike Lee and Virginia Republican Rep. Ben Cline will reintroduce legislation Monday to prevent government workers from engaging in union-related work while on the clock.<\/p>\n

Lee and Cline\u2019s No Union Time on the Taxpayer\u2019s Dime Act would end the practice of \u201cofficial time\u201d\u2014 paid time given to federal employees to perform union duties during work hours and using government office space. This practice\u00a0costs<\/a>\u00a0taxpayers more than $100 million annually, according to data from the White House Office of Personnel Management (OPM).
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\u201cThe American taxpayer should not be obligated to pay federal employees to engage in union activities,\u201d according to a\u00a0fact sheet<\/a>\u00a0Lee\u2019s office sent the DCNF.<\/p>\n

\"\"The bill\u2019s reintroduction comes as President Donald Trump is seeking to end collective bargaining for a vast majority of government employees.<\/p>\n

Trump\u00a0signed<\/a>\u00a0an executive order on March 27 to end the union representation of federal employees with national security-related missions, including the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, Department of State and Department of Energy. The move will terminate collective bargaining rights for more than one million federal workers,\u00a0according<\/a>\u00a0to the American Federation of Government Employees.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Trump supports constructive partnerships with unions who work with him; he will not tolerate mass obstruction that jeopardizes his ability to manage agencies with vital national security missions,\u201d the White House fact sheet on the executive order said.<\/p>\n

OPM in March\u00a0resumed<\/a>\u00a0tracking how much time and money federal employees spend on union-related activities in February after a four-year hiatus during former President Joe Biden\u2019s term.<\/p>\n

The office\u00a0found<\/a>\u00a0that federal employees spent 2.6 million hours on official time costing American taxpayers at least $135 million in 2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmerican taxpayers shouldn\u2019t have to fund union organizing, and federal employees should be working full time for the American people when they\u2019re on the clock,\u201d Lee told the DCNF in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cEnding \u2018official time\u2019 is a commonsense step to ensure taxpayer dollars are used responsibly and to increase accountability across the federal workforce,\u201d Cline told the DCNF. \u201cPublic funds should serve the American people, not private union interests.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lee and former Republican North Carolina Rep. Dan Bishop, current deputy director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, introduced the legislation during the 118th Congress in July 2024. Neither bill advanced to a vote on the House or Senate floor.<\/p>\n

Republican Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst and Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Scott Perry unveiled similar legislation in March to force government unions to reimburse taxpayers for federal employees\u2019 use of official time, the DCNF first\u00a0reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Adam Pack is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
\nPhoto \u201cMike Lee\u201d by Mike Lee.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
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The post GOP Unveils Bill to End Taxpayer-Funded Union Organizing<\/a> first appeared on The Star News Network<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/thestarnewsnetwork.com\/2025\/04\/07\/gop-unveils-bill-to-end-taxpayer-funded-union-organizing\/ by Adam Pack \u00a0 Republican Utah Sen. Mike Lee…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":143,"featured_media":3655,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wi-daily-star"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/143"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16130"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16132,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16130\/revisions\/16132"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}