[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 77 (Wednesday, June 12, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1015]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              INTRODUCTION OF OFFICIAL TIME REPORTING ACT

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                            HON. DAN MILLER

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, June 11, 2002

  Mr. DAN MILLER of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise to discuss legislation 
I have introduced today. The ``Official Time Reporting Act'' is a much 
needed effort to bring sunshine to the mysterious world of ``official 
time.''
  This bill would require the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to 
collect and report to Congress on the use of official time by federal 
union workers.
  Official time is the use of federal government paid time to attend to 
union related business. The use of official time by union members for 
the participation in collective bargaining and Federal Labor Relations 
Act authorized activities is a matter of statutory right. Using 
official time for other union activities is negotiated between the 
agency and the union.
  However, critics note that official time has ambiguous definitions 
that leave it open for abuse such as through the use of ``no-show'' 
jobs or government funded union advocacy. Nevertheless, the bill I am 
introducing today has nothing to do with the merits of official time, 
it simply tries to quantify the use of it within the federal 
government.
  There are over 1.8 million federal workers currently working for the 
government. This large workforce is continuing to grow especially with 
the war on terror adding to its roles. However, there is no method to 
tell what federal resources (salary, equipment, etc.) are used for 
purely union related work as opposed to federal work.
  Currently, only the Social Security Administration (SSA) collects and 
reports this information.
  The information currently collected by the SSA includes:
  (1) The number of hours of official time that employees spent on 
union activities;
  (2) Number of employees who used official time for union activities;
  (3) Number of employees who spent 100 percent of their time on union 
activities;
  (4) Dollar value of the official time spent on union activities;
  (5) Dollar value of the office space, equipment, telephone use and 
supplies provided to unions; and
  (6) Benefits and disadvantages of using official time for union 
activities.
  My bill would simply make every federal agency report this 
information to the OPM.
  Extrapolating from the currently provided SSA data, official time 
usage could be at least a $400 million a year federal government-wide 
expense. When we are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars, 
Congress should not have to guess.
  Furthermore the previous administration's OPM was ordered by Congress 
to examine this issue in 1998. In its 1998 report, OPM calculated a 
figure of roughly $110 million using different criteria than the SSA. 
So as you can see official time is not cheap.
  This bill puts sunshine on the issue of federal worker productivity 
and will be an important tool for Congress to use to understand how the 
money it appropriates is being spent and for the Executive Branch to 
understand how it is allocating resources.
  The General Accounting Office (GAO) has tried to study how much 
official time is being used but has been stymied by the lack of data on 
this issue. In testimony before the Civil Service Subcommittee of the 
House Government Reform and Oversight Committee in June 1998, GAO 
concluded: ``our work has shown that if decision makers hope to resolve 
the question of the extent to which federal agencies use official time 
and other resources to support employee union activities, better data 
will be needed.''
  This bill will remedy this important GAO concern.
  The Official Time Reporting Act is different than an official time 
bill that I introduced in 1998 called the Workplace Integrity Act. 
Whereas the 1998 bill contained restrictions on official time, this 
bill solely concentrates on reporting and disclosure issues. The 
Official Time Reporting Act has no restrictions on the use of official 
time. It is a bill introduced in the spirit of openness and good 
government. I am hopeful this good government disclosure bill will be 
acted upon by Congress in an expeditions manner.
  I urge my colleagues to co-sponsor this important bill and I thank 
the Speaker for yielding me this time.

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