Representative Scott Franklin (R-FL) has reintroduced a bill requiring federal agencies to publicly disclose how taxpayer dollars are used to subsidize union-related activities during official work hours.
Named the Taxpayer-Funded Union Time Transparency Act, Rep. Franklin's bill requires agencies to report the total cost of official time, its purpose, individual employee data related to union activity, compensation for union-related work records, travel costs, monetary value of government property provided to unions, reimbursements, and yearly comparisons of official time use.
Rep. Franklin noted that a Fiscal Year 2019 report suggested that US taxpayers subsidized $160 million on taxpayer-funded union time (TFUT), meaning federal workers were negotiating union benefits while still being paid for work.
More egregiously, the Biden Administration failed to update this data, although the Trump Administration has resumed tracking and publicly disclosing the total cost of TFUT across the federal government.
"Taxpayers shouldn't pay for empty federal office buildings or for federal employees to unionize on the clock. It's just common sense — Americans deserve a full, detailed account of how bureaucrats use both their official time and office space for union-related work," said Franklin in his press release, adding, "The President was right to order federal employees back to the office —but if taxpayers are footing the bill, workers must be accountable for how they spend their official time. Our bill will provide critical transparency and expose entrenched bureaucrats who have been skirting these important reporting requirements for far too long."
Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) introduced the Senate companion bill and stated, "Bureaucrats have forgotten that they serve the American people, not themselves. Taxpayers deserve to know just how much of their hard-earned money is footing the bill for the insane practice of taxpayer-funded union time. Once we figure out just how much these unions owe, I will be coming to collect every penny."
Franklin had previously advocated for the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) tracking Pentagon expenditures, telling The Floridian, "When was the last time the Department of Defense passed an audit? Like years and years and years. I think we need to do that."
