Social Security: Union Activity at the Social Security Administration
(Testimony, 06/04/96, GAO/T-HEHS-96-150).
Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed union activities at
the Social Security Administration (SSA) and how these activities
compare with other federal agencies, federal corporations, and the
private sector. GAO noted that: (1) unions have significant involvement
in operations and management decisions and union representatives use
authorized paid time off to conduct their activities; (2) agencies are
not required to track the amount of official time charged to union
activities; (3) in 1995, time spent on union activities at SSA totalled
about 413,000 hours, costing SSA trust funds about $12.6 million; (4) in
1995, the number of full-time SSA union representatives increased to
145; (5) SSA believes that time spent on union activities is
underreported because there is no reporting system that adequately
tracks union representatives' activities; (6) unions determine the
amount of time representatives should spend on union activities, without
consent from local managers; (7) SSA field managers believe that the
lack of consent for union activities has caused operational problems;
(8) union officials believe that the time spent on union activities is
necessary to fully represent the interests of SSA workers; (9) the
amount and cost of union activity at the Internal Revenue Service is
slightly more than at SSA; (10) the Postal Service incurred
substantially more union activity costs than SSA; and (11) the extent to
which private industry supports and pays for union activities varies
widely among companies.
--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------
REPORTNUM: T-HEHS-96-150
TITLE: Social Security: Union Activity at the Social Security
Administration
DATE: 06/04/96
SUBJECT: Labor-management relations
Leave
Government employee unions
Labor negotiations
Personnel management
Federal employees
Human resources utilization
Accounting procedures
Collective bargaining
Social Security: Union Activity at the Social Security Administration
(Testimony, 06/04/96, GAO/T-HEHS-96-150).
Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed union activities at
the Social Security Administration (SSA) and how these activities
compare with other federal agencies, federal corporations, and the
private sector. GAO noted that: (1) unions have significant involvement
in operations and management decisions and union representatives use
authorized paid time off to conduct their activities; (2) agencies are
not required to track the amount of official time charged to union
activities; (3) in 1995, time spent on union activities at SSA totalled
about 413,000 hours, costing SSA trust funds about $12.6 million; (4) in
1995, the number of full-time SSA union representatives increased to
145; (5) SSA believes that time spent on union activities is
underreported because there is no reporting system that adequately
tracks union representatives' activities; (6) unions determine the
amount of time representatives should spend on union activities, without
consent from local managers; (7) SSA field managers believe that the
lack of consent for union activities has caused operational problems;
(8) union officials believe that the time spent on union activities is
necessary to fully represent the interests of SSA workers; (9) the
amount and cost of union activity at the Internal Revenue Service is
slightly more than at SSA; (10) the Postal Service incurred
substantially more union activity costs than SSA; and (11) the extent to
which private industry supports and pays for union activities varies
widely among companies.
--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------
REPORTNUM: T-HEHS-96-150
TITLE: Social Security: Union Activity at the Social Security
Administration
DATE: 06/04/96
SUBJECT: Labor-management relations
Leave
Government employee unions
Labor negotiations
Personnel management
Federal employees
Human resources utilization
Accounting procedures
Collective bargaining
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Cover
================================================================ COVER
Before the Subcommittee on Social Security, Committee on Ways and
Means, House of Representatives
For Release on Delivery
Expected at 2:00 p.m.
Tuesday, June 4, 1996
SOCIAL SECURITY - UNION ACTIVITY
AT THE SOCIAL SECURITY
ADMINISTRATION
Statement of Jane L. Ross, Director
Income Security Issues
Health, Education, and Human Services Division
GAO/T-HEHS-96-150
GAO/HEHS-96-150T
(105146)
Abbreviations
=============================================================== ABBREV
AFGE - American Federation of Government Employees
BNA - Bureau of National Affairs
FLRA - Federal Labor Relations Authority
FY - fiscal year
IRS - Internal Revenue Service
NFFE - National Federation of Federal Employees
NTEU - National Treasury Employees Union
OPM - Office of Personnel Management
SSA - Social Security Administration
ULP - unfair labor practices
VA - Department of Veterans Affairs
SOCIAL SECURITY: UNION ACTIVITY
AT THE SOCIAL SECURITY
ADMINISTRATION
============================================================ Chapter 0
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:
I am pleased to be here today to discuss the time spent on union
activities at the Social Security Administration (SSA). Union
activities generally include representing employees in complaints
against management, bargaining over changes in working conditions and
the application of personnel policies, and negotiating union
contracts with management. The federal government pays its
employees' salaries and expenses for the portion of time they are
allowed to spend on union activities; it also provides other support,
such as space, supplies, equipment, and some travel expenses.\1
Federal union members generally cannot bargain over wages and cannot
strike, and federal employees are not required to join unions and pay
union dues in order to be represented by the union.
Given the budget constraints facing federal agencies, the
Subcommittee expressed concern about the amount of time and expenses
devoted to union activities and paid for by the federal government.
The Subcommittee expressed particular concern about SSA unions
regarding the amount of money paid for union activities out of the
Social Security trust funds.
As requested, I will focus my remarks on the history of union
involvement in the federal government, the statutory basis for the
federal government to pay employee salaries and expenses for union
activities, and the amount of time spent on and costs associated with
union activities at SSA and how the agency accounts for it. The
Subcommittee also asked us to comment on how the amount of time and
money spent at SSA on union activities compares with what is spent at
other large federal agencies, such as the Department of Veterans
Affairs (VA) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and how it
compares with the amount spent by the U.S. Postal Service, which
operates more like a private-sector company. As requested, we have
also provided information on union activities in the private sector.
In response to your request, we began our work at SSA in August 1995.
To develop this information, we interviewed management and union
officials in SSA headquarters and 4 of SSA's 10 regional offices. We
also reviewed union contracts, payroll records, and time-reporting
forms. To determine the amount of time spent on union activities, we
reviewed yearly reports of time spent on union activities and
verified the time reported by reviewing source documents at one
region and selected headquarters components. We supplemented our
fieldwork with telephone calls to three additional SSA regions to
verify that similar time reporting procedures were used.
We also met with union and management officials at VA, IRS, and the
Postal Service to compare their union time and costs with SSA's. VA
does not operate a national union time-reporting system and therefore
could not provide data on union activities. Consequently, we are not
providing any information concerning VA. At IRS and the Postal
Service, we obtained available information on union activity from
headquarters and selected field facilities but did not verify its
accuracy. We also discussed the role and function of unions in the
federal government with the Office of Personnel Management and
discussed the private-sector use of official time for union
activities with labor-relations experts at various trade
associations, colleges, and universities. We also reviewed a 1992
Bureau of National Affairs (BNA) publication that summarized trends
in labor/management contracts for private industry. Finally, to
determine the types of contract provisions that exist in private
industry with regard to the use of official time, we reviewed 10
contracts on file at the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In summary, federal labor/management relations were formalized by
executive order in the early 1960s.\2 In 1962, an executive order
permitted federal agencies to grant official time for certain
meetings between management and union representatives, at the
discretion of the agency. The management control prevalent when the
first executive order was issued has evolved over time, and today
unions operating at federal government agencies have significant
involvement in operational and management decisions. The use of
official time, which is authorized paid time off from assigned duties
for union activities, has become a routine method of union operation
in the federal government. Office of Personnel Management officials
told us that currently no governmentwide requirement exists to
capture or report the amount of official time charged to union
activities. They further noted that managers and employees would
spend time interacting on personnel and working condition matters
even if there were no unions operating at agencies.
We determined that over the last 6 years, the time spent on union
activities at SSA has grown from 254,000 to at least 413,000 hours,
at a cost to SSA's trust funds of $12.6 million in 1995 alone. That
is, SSA currently pays the equivalent of the salaries and expenses of
about 200 SSA employees to represent the interests of the
approximately 52,000 employees represented by unions at SSA. This
cost represents a portion of the $5.5 billion SSA incurred in
administrative expenses for fiscal year 1995.
In addition, SSA has reported to the Congress that the number of
full-time union representatives, those devoting 75 percent or more of
their time to union activities, grew from 80 to 145 between 1993 and
1995. We found, however, that the reporting system for collecting
such data does not adequately track the number of union
representatives charging time to union activities or the actual time
spent. Consequently, we conducted a limited verification of the
hours spent on union activities reported by SSA and found that time
spent on union activities was underreported. While SSA is currently
developing a new system to more accurately track the time spent on
union activities, it plans to implement this system to replace only
the automated reporting system for union representatives in the field
offices and teleservice centers. SSA is not planning to improve the
less accurate manual time-reporting system for its other components.
Under the terms of the current SSA union contract negotiated in 1993,
the selection of union representatives and the amount of time they
spend on union activities are determined by the union, without the
consent of local managers. We found that over 1,800 designated union
representatives in SSA are authorized to spend time on union
activities, although most of the time spent is by SSA's 146 full-time
representatives. Some SSA field managers told us that their having
no involvement in decisions about how much time is spent by
individuals and who the individuals are causes problems in managing
the day-to-day activities of their operations. Union
representatives, on the other hand, told us that the time they use is
necessary to fully represent the interests of their coworkers.
SSA reported that it paid for 404,000 hours for union activities in
fiscal year 1995, as compared with 442,000 hours reported by IRS in
fiscal year 1994, the most recent information available. The Postal
Service reported that 1.7 million hours spent on union activities in
fiscal year 1995 related to grievances. This Postal Service estimate
does not include substantial additional time spent on other types of
union activities and paid for by either the unions or the Postal
Service.
With regard to union activity in private industry, some employers pay
some or all of the salaries and expenses of union representatives, as
the federal government does, while others do not.
--------------------
\1 The U.S. Postal Service generally does not pay the salaries and
expenses of full-time union representatives. Instead, salaries and
expenses are covered by union dues. The Postal Services does,
however, pay for the time spent on union activities by some part-time
union representatives and for union-occupied space in postal
facilities.
\2 Postal labor/management relations are governed by the Postal
Reorganization Act of 1970, which incorporates many provisions of the
National Labor Relations Act.
BACKGROUND
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:1
Labor unions are groups of employees organized to bargain with
employers over such issues as wages, hours, benefits, and working
conditions. The current federal labor/management program differs
from nonfederal programs in three important ways: (1) federal unions
bargain on a limited number of issues--bargaining over pay and other
economic benefits is generally prohibited,\3 (2) strikes and lockouts
are prohibited, and (3) federal employees cannot be compelled to
join, or pay dues to, the unions that represent them. At SSA,
employees are represented by three unions: the American Federation
of Government Employees (AFGE), which represents over 95 percent of
SSA employees who are represented by a union; the National Treasury
Employees Union (NTEU); and the National Federation of Federal
Employees (NFFE). Of SSA's 65,000 employees, about 52,000
nonsupervisory employees are represented by the unions, and about 47
percent of those represented are dues-paying union members. Union
operations at SSA are governed by a national AFGE contract and six
other union contracts with individual NTEU and NFFE components.
At the other federal organizations we visited, five unions had
national collective bargaining agreements--four at the Postal Service
and one at IRS. There were 751,000 employees represented by unions
at the Postal Service and 97,000 at IRS. Although other unions
without national collective bargaining agreements represented Postal
Service employees, the number of employees represented by these
unions is less than 1 percent of all represented employees.
There are two main categories of official time, or government paid
time spent on union activities, at SSA. The category known as "bank
time" in field offices, and equivalent categories of official time in
other components, refers to time that is negotiated and limited by
SSA contracts with its unions. Bank time includes time spent on
union- or employee-initiated grievances (complaints regarding any
matter related to employment) as well as on union-initiated
activities, such as training or representational duties. The
category known as "nonbank time" in field offices, and equivalent
categories in other components, generally refers to time spent on
management-initiated activities; bargaining over changes to work
assignments and working conditions (such as disallowed leave,
employee work space, and equipment); management-initiated grievances;
and any other time not specifically designated as bank time.
--------------------
\3 Postal unions, however, can bargain over wages and other economic
benefits.
HISTORY OF UNION ACTIVITY IN
THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:2
In 1912, the Lloyd-LaFollette Act established the right of postal
employees to join a union and set a precedent for other federal
employees to join unions. The government did little to provide
agencies with guidance on labor relations until the early 1960s.
In 1962, President Kennedy issued Executive Order 10988, establishing
in the executive branch a framework for federal agencies to bargain
with unions over working conditions and personnel practices. The
order established a decentralized labor/management program under
which each agency had discretion in interpreting the order, deciding
individual agency policy, and settling its own contract disputes and
grievances.
In 1969, President Nixon issued Executive Order 11491, which
established a process for resolving labor disputes in the executive
branch by forming the Federal Labor Relations Council to prescribe
regulations and arbitrate grievances. This order clarified language
to expressly permit bargaining on operational issues for employees
adversely affected by organizational realignments or technological
changes.
In 1970, the Postal Reorganization Act brought postal labor relations
under a structure similar to that applicable to companies in the
private sector. Collective bargaining for wages, hours, and working
conditions was authorized subject to regulation by the National Labor
Relations Board. Like other federal employees, postal employees
could not be compelled to join or pay dues to a union and could not
strike.
The Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 provided a statutory basis for
the current federal labor/management relations program and set up an
independent body, the Federal Labor Relations Authority, to
administer the program. The act expanded the scope of collective
bargaining--the process under which union representatives and
management bargain over working conditions--to allow routine
negotiation of some operational issues, such as the use of technology
and the means for conducting agency operations.
In 1993, President Clinton issued Executive Order 12871, which
articulated a new vision of labor/management relations, called
"Partnership." Partnership required agencies to involve labor
organizations as full partners with management in identifying
problems and crafting solutions to better fulfill the agency mission.
It also expanded the scope of bargainable issues. This new
arrangement was intended to end the sometimes adversarial
relationship between federal unions and management and to help
facilitate implementation of National Performance Review initiatives,
which were intended to improve public service and reduce the cost of
government.
BASIS FOR PAYING SALARIES OF
UNION REPRESENTATIVES
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:3
In 1962, Executive Order 10988 permitted federal agencies to grant
official time, which is authorized paid time off from assigned
government duties, for meetings between management and union
representatives for contract negotiation, at the discretion of the
agency. In 1971, Executive Order 11491 was amended to prohibit the
use of official time for contract negotiation unless the agency and
union agreed to certain arrangements. Specifically, the agency could
authorize either (1) up to 40 hours of official time for negotiation
during regular working hours or (2) up to one-half the time actually
spent in negotiations. Over the next 4 years, a series of Federal
Labor Relations Council decisions and regulations continued to
liberalize the use of official time by allowing negotiations for the
use of official time for other purposes.
The Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 authorized official time for
federal agency union representatives in negotiating a collective
bargaining agreement.\4 The act also permitted agencies and unions to
negotiate whether union representatives would be granted official
time in connection with other labor/management activities, as long as
the official time was deemed reasonable, necessary, and in the public
interest. The act continued to permit agencies to provide unions
with routine services and facilities at agency expense. The act
prohibited the use of official time for internal union business, such
as solicitation of members.
--------------------
\4 The Postal Service is not governed by this act. The basis for
paying certain union representatives for specified union activities
at the Postal Service is contained in union contracts. Contract
negotiations are carried out at union expense.
TIME SPENT ON AND COST OF UNION
ACTIVITIES AT SSA
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:4
SSA has a national system for reporting time spent on union
activities by union representatives. This system is separate from
the agency's time and attendance and workload reporting systems.
Under this system, union representatives generally fill out and
submit forms to their supervisors to account for union time. The
hours reported on these forms are then periodically aggregated and
submitted to SSA headquarters for totaling. This time-reporting
system consists of two component systems that cover roughly an equal
number of employees. The first is an automated system that captures
time reported by union representatives working in field offices,
which are the primary point of public contact with SSA, and at
teleservice centers, where calls to SSA's national 800 number are
answered. The second component is a manual system used to capture
time spent by union representatives at SSA headquarters, as well as
at Program Service Centers, the Office of Hearings and Appeals, and
other components. Neither system is designed to capture either time
spent by management on union-related matters or the number or names
of individuals charging union time.
We conducted a limited verification of time captured in SSA's
national reporting system at one SSA region and several headquarters
components. By tracing source documents for union representatives'
time to reported totals in the system, we discovered additional time
not captured by the two systems. These gaps occurred primarily in
the manual system and resulted from inaccurate reporting from the
source documents, overlooked reports for some union representatives,
and uncounted reports for some organizational units during certain
reporting periods. We also verified that similar procedures were
being used at three other regions, which could result in similar
underreporting at these locations. Figure 1 shows the total time
spent at SSA on union activities, including the additional time we
discovered.
Figure 1: Total Time Spent on
Union Activities at SSA,
1990-95
(See figure in printed
edition.)
Source: SSA national time reports and results of GAO verification.
The overall time spent on union activities has grown steadily from
254,000 hours in 1990 to over 413,000 in 1995. This is the
equivalent of paying the salaries and other expenses of about 200 SSA
employees to represent the 52,000 employees in the bargaining unit in
1995. Figure 2 shows the difference between SSA's national time
reports and our estimated time. SSA reported 254,000 hours of
official time devoted to union activities in 1990, 269,000 in 1991,
272,000 in 1992, 314,000 in 1993, 297,000 in 1994, and 404,000 in
1995.
Figure 2: Time Spent on Union
Activities by SSA Employees,
1990-95
(See figure in printed
edition.)
Note: GAO's verification of time charges was focused on 1995. Some
additional unreported time was discovered in several of the earlier
years.
Source: SSA national time reports and results of GAO verification.
Because of limitations in SSA's reporting system, it is not possible
to estimate actual time spent agencywide for any reporting period.
Although it is likely that the actual time spent agencywide exceeds
our estimates, our verification sample was not large enough to be
statistically valid, so it cannot be extrapolated to all of SSA.
To determine what contributed to the increase in time spent on union
activities, we developed information on the categories of time used.
Figure 3 shows that bank time has remained relatively constant
between 1990 and 1995, and that most of the increase in time spent on
union activities during this period is attributable to nonbank
time--mainly for bargaining activities.
Figure 3: SSA-Reported
Official Time by Activity,
1990-95
(See figure in printed
edition.)
Note: This chart does not include additional unreported hours found
by GAO.
Source: SSA national time reports.
Figures 4 and 5 show that the number of other nonbank activities,
such as unfair labor practices cases and arbitration cases (nonbank
in the hearing stage), that result from unsettled grievances, has
declined in recent years.
Figure 4: Number of Unfair
Labor Practices Cases at SSA,
1990-95
(See figure in printed
edition.)
Source: SSA Office of Labor Management Relations.
Figure 5: Number of SSA
Arbitration Hearings, 1990-95
(See figure in printed
edition.)
Source: SSA Office of Labor Management Relations.
SSA is currently developing a new system to better track and account
for time spent on union activities in its field offices and
teleservice centers. SSA says the purpose of this system is to
provide management and the union with a more accurate and up-to-date
accounting of time spent and the number of employees working on union
activities and to ensure that time expended on certain activities
does not exceed time allotted to the unions by the contracts. SSA,
however, has no current plans to apply this new system to
headquarters, the Program Service Centers, the Office of Hearings and
Appeals, or other components using the manual system and did not
explain why the agency made this decision.
SSA has no system for routinely calculating and reporting the cost of
union activity, although it does provide annual estimates of the
expenses for union activities to the Congress. Figure 6 shows that
SSA's estimates of union costs increased from $6 million in fiscal
year 1993 to $11 million in fiscal year 1995. SSA's total
administrative expense budget estimate for fiscal year 1995 was $5.5
billion.
Figure 6: SSA Expenditures for
Union Activities, 1990-95
(See figure in printed
edition.)
Source: SSA Justifications of Estimates for Appropriations
Committees (FY 1990-1995) and GAO cost estimate for 1995.
In order to determine the accuracy of these estimates, we tried to
construct our own estimate of union-related costs. Because the
salaries of union representatives make up most of the cost, we asked
SSA for a list of current representatives and the time they spend on
union activities. SSA estimated that there were about 1,600 union
representatives, but the lists they maintained were outdated and
incomplete. We identified about 1,800 union representatives who are
currently authorized by the union to spend time on SSA union
activities. SSA has also reported to the Congress that the number of
full-time representatives--those spending 75 percent or more of their
time on union activities--grew from 80 to 145 between fiscal years
1993 and 1995. We identified 146 current full-time representatives.
The average annual salary in 1995 for the 146 full-time
representatives was $41,970. In 1996, their salaries ranged from
$23,092 to $81,217. Table 1 shows the annual salary ranges of these
representatives in 1996.
Table 1
1996 Salary Ranges of Union
Representatives Spending 75 to 100
Percent of Their Time on Union
Activities
Number of
Salary ranges representatives
-------------------------------------- ------------------
0-$10,000 0
10,001-20,000 0
20,001-30,000 16
30,001-40,000 36
40,001-50,000 79
50,001-60,000 9
60,001-70,000 5
70,001-80,000 0
80,001-90,000 1
Over $90,000 0
==========================================================
Total 146
----------------------------------------------------------
Source: SSA Office of Labor Management Relations and SSA personnel
records.
We estimate that the total cost to SSA for union activities of all
representatives was about $12.6 million in 1995. We calculated the
1995 personnel cost to be $11.4 million by multiplying the average
hourly salary of union representatives (about $27.64, including
benefits) by the 413,000 hours we estimated the representatives spent
on union activities.
The remaining $1.2 million in total SSA costs for union activities
includes related travel expenses; SSA's share of arbitration costs;
and support costs, such as supplies, office space, and telephone use.
More specifically, in accordance with the union contracts, SSA pays
for travel related to contract negotiations and grievance cases. In
addition, it pays the travel and per-diem costs of all union
representatives, whenever meetings are held at management's
initiative. Union representation at major SSA initiatives, such as
the reengineering of its disability programs, the National
Partnership Council, and Partnership training, has added to travel
and per-diem costs. In 1995, SSA estimated that it spent about
$600,000 on travel-related expenses for union representatives. Union
representatives told us that the union pays travel costs for
union-sponsored training, internal union activities, and some local
travel.
Under the national contract agreements, arbitration fees and related
expenses are shared equally between the union and SSA. SSA reported
that its share of arbitration costs was $54,000 for the 38 cases
heard in 1995.
SSA also incurs other costs for telephones, computers, fax machines,
furniture, space, and supplies used by union representatives. In
1995, SSA estimated this cost at $500,000.
Regarding the amount of dues collected from union members, we
determined that about $4.8 million was collected in 1995, mainly
through payroll deduction. The unions use these funds for their
internal expenses, which include the cost of lodging and
transportation for union-provided training; the union's share of
grievance costs; miscellaneous furniture, supplies, and equipment for
some union offices; the salaries of the AFGE local president and his
staff, who represent SSA headquarters employees; and a share of
national union expenses.
The recent advent of Partnership activities in SSA will likely
increase the time spent on union activities. The executive order on
Partnership directs agencies to involve unions as the representatives
of employees to work as full partners with management to design and
implement changes necessary to reform government. Partnership
activities at SSA are just starting, and we found that these limited
activities are not routinely designated by SSA in its union
time-reporting system. It is possible that time spent on Partnership
activities is currently being reported in other activity categories.
Consequently, as Partnership activities increase, we would expect the
time devoted to them to also increase. However, this will be evident
only if agency time-reporting systems adequately designate this time.
It should be noted that many public and private organizations without
unions are involving employees in quality management initiatives
similar to Partnership activities.
SSA MANAGEMENT AND UNION
VIEWS ON UNION TIME
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:4.1
SSA managers and union officials and representatives have offered
their views about the use of official time for union activities. SSA
managers, both individually and through their managers' associations,
have expressed concern to us and to the Congress about limitations in
their ability to effectively manage their operations and control the
use of time spent by their employees under the current
union/management arrangement. By contract, the assignment of union
representatives and the amount of time they spend on union activities
are determined by the union without the consent of local management.
Of the 31 field managers we interviewed, 21 said that it is more
difficult to manage day-to-day office functions because they have
little or no control over when and how union activities are
conducted. They said that they have trouble maintaining adequate
staffing levels in the office to serve walk-in traffic, answer the
telephones, and handle routine office workloads. Additionally, 18
expressed concern about the amount of time they spend responding to
union requests for information regarding bargaining and grievances.
We did not verify the accuracy of any of the field managers'
statements. We tried to quantify the time spent by managers on
union-related activities, but SSA had no time reporting system to
track it. However, managers would be spending some of their time
interacting with employees about similar issues even if there were no
unions.
Nine out of the 15 union officials and representatives we talked to
felt that it was counterproductive in the Partnership era to track
time spent on union activities. They believe that union
representation is an important function that is authorized by a
negotiated agreement with SSA that authorizes them to represent the
interests of their coworkers. They consider the amount of time
currently allocated for their activities as appropriate and believe
that more attention should be paid to the value of their efforts than
to the time it takes to conduct them.
COMPARISON OF TIME SPENT AND
COST OF UNION ACTIVITY AT THE
POSTAL SERVICE, IRS, AND SSA
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:5
The Postal Service and IRS provided data to us on time spent on union
activities in their agencies. Postal Service records show that
during fiscal year 1995, union representatives at the Postal Service
reported spending 1.7 million hours of official time on grievance
processing and handling in the early stages. This number does not
include substantial amounts of official time spent on employee
involvement programs similar to SSA's Partnership activities, which
are paid for by the Postal Service. Neither does this number include
official time spent on activities such as employee involvement
training and ULP charges.
IRS records showed that their union representatives reported spending
442,000 hours on union activities in fiscal year 1994, the most
recent year for which data are available. We did not attempt to
verify these estimates. Table 2 shows the amount of time reportedly
spent and the bargaining unit size of each organization. In fiscal
year 1995, the Postal Service reported spending $29 million in basic
pay on grievance processing and handling for the 1.7 million hours.
IRS did not develop cost data for union operations.
Table 2
Fiscal Year 1995 Comparative Union-
Related Data
Cost
Dues- (millions
Organizati Bargaining paying Time spent of
on unit size members (hours) dollars)
---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ----------
Postal 751,000 623,000 1,744,000\ 29.2
Service a
IRS 97,000 43,000 442,000\b No data
SSA 52,000 24,000 404,000 11.0
----------------------------------------------------------
\a This number does not include substantial additional time spent on
union activities and paid for by either the unions or the Postal
Service.
\b This number is based on data from fiscal year 1994, the latest
year for which data are available.
Source: Unverified data provided by agencies.
WHO PAYS UNION COSTS IN PRIVATE
INDUSTRY?
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:6
Union operations in private industry vary widely. In addition to
bargaining over working conditions as SSA unions do, unions in
private industry bargain over wages, hours, and benefits. In
discussions with National Labor Relations Board officials, we were
told that some private-sector firms do not pay their employees'
salaries for the time they spend performing union activities, and
other firms pay for some or all of the time. For example, during our
review of 10 contracts, we found that 7 provided for company
employees, acting as union representatives, to perform certain union
functions in addition to their company duties, at the expense of the
employer. In a 1992 publication that summarized basic patterns in
private industry union contracts, BNA reported that over 50 percent
of the 400 labor contracts it analyzed guaranteed pay to employees
engaged in union activity on company time. It also reported that 22
percent of the contracts specifically prohibit conducting union
activities on company time.
Private-sector employers negotiate company time with pay for union
representatives to handle grievances more frequently than they do for
contract negotiations. Of the contracts reviewed by BNA, 53 percent
guaranteed pay for union representatives to present, investigate, or
handle grievances. This practice was reported occurring twice as
often in manufacturing as in nonmanufacturing businesses. BNA
reported that only 10 percent of the contracts guaranteed pay for
employees to negotiate contracts.
Forty-one percent of the private-sector contracts guaranteeing
employees pay when they conduct union activities on company time
place restrictions on representatives. BNA reported that in 19
percent of the cases with such pay guarantees, management limited the
amount of hours that it would pay for. Our review of 10
private-sector contracts submitted to the Bureau of Labor Statistics
found one negotiated contract under which employees were limited to 6
hours a day of company time for union representation and another
under which employees were limited to 8 hours per week of company
time for processing grievances.
CONCLUSIONS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:7
SSA, like other federal agencies and some private firms, pays for
approved time spent by their employees on union activities. SSA has
a special fiduciary responsibility to effectively manage and maintain
the integrity of the Social Security trust funds from which most of
these expenses are paid. In a time of shrinking budgets and
personnel resources, it is especially important for SSA, as well as
other agencies, to evaluate how resources are being spent and to have
reliable monitoring systems that facilitate this evaluation.
To ensure accurate tracking of time spent on union activities and the
staff conducting these activities, SSA has developed and is testing a
new time-reporting system for its field offices and teleservice
centers. We agree that these are valuable goals for a time-reporting
system and believe that it should be implemented agencywide,
including at headquarters, Program Service Centers, the Office of
Hearings and Appeals, and other components currently using the less
reliable manual reporting system. With an improved agencywide
system, SSA management should have better information on where its
resources are being spent.
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:7.1
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my formal remarks. I would be happy to
answer any questions from you or other members of the Subcommittee.
Thank you.
For more information on this testimony, please call Jane L. Ross,
Director, Income Security Issues, at (202) 512-7215.
*** End of document. ***