Social security workers call new Trump administration contract 'union-busting'
Source: The Guardian
New contract will reduce the time allotted to employees for union activity from 250,000 hours annually to 50,000
Michael Sainato
Wed 3 Jul 2019 07.00 BST Last modified on Wed 3 Jul 2019 07.03 BST
Workers at the Social Security Administration (SSA) say that the Trump administration has imposed a new contract on their 45,000 workers that could effectively shut down their union and are warning that the same thing could be tried elsewhere in the federal government as part of a crackdown on the labor movement.
A federal panel, consisting mainly of Trump-appointed members, issued a decision in May to impose a new union contract for the 45,000 federal employees at the SSA. The move came despite a federal judges decision last year to strike down most provisions in similarly issued orders for violating collective bargaining rights for federal employees.
The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), says the new contract the panel decided to impose chronically hampers its work at the agency, which mainly pays out retirement and disability benefits. The SSA is the first major federal agency up for a union contract renewal since Donald Trumps executive orders were issued last year, and it is the AFGEs second-largest bargaining unit.
If the agency is successful in implementing this panel order, it will decimate our ability to represent workers all over the country, said Rich Couture, an agency employee for more than 30 years and the unions chief negotiator.
The provisions in the new contract will reduce the time allotted to SSA employees for union activity from 250,000 hours annually to 50,000 hours and ban all workers from using government property to conduct union activities, such as office spaces and government emails and holding files on government computers or in offices. It will also grant management the discretion to eliminate remote work.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/03/social-security-agency-union-contract-trump-administration
Historic NY
(37,453 posts)The provisions in the new contract will reduce the time allotted to SSA employees for union activity from 250,000 hours annually to 50,000 hours and ban all workers from using government property to conduct union activities, such as office spaces and government emails and holding files on government computers or in offices. It will also grant management the discretion to eliminate remote work.
WTF would they put this information on government owned equipment.
Perhaps its time to find new union leadership that doesn't allow the government access to their activities.
Develop an employee website, with individual employee log in, so they can be kept up to date.
50000 hrs equal 2,083.33 days.
My Government Union would never think of using in house computers.
Eugene
(61,945 posts)via workers' own devices on government property would be restricted as well. Keeping an employee rights handbook, electronic or paper, on site could also run afoul of that restriction.
blue-wave
(4,363 posts)roll there eyes at the comparison, but Hitler and his nazi pals implemented anti-union tactics after coming to power, the nazi's were never pro-worker. They basically made the average German worker into low paid slaves for the reich. Hmmmm, history rhyming?