Unions fight Trump to the detriment of workers they're supposed to represent | Opinion
Each of the 75,000 federal workers who took President Donald Trump's buyout offer had a reason for accepting it. But instead of defending their interests, the unions tried to stifle their freedom.
At least 75,000 federal workers accepted President Donald Trump’s buyout offer, which expired Feb. 12. Democrats and their allies are howling, all but claiming that a generous buyout offer was a kind of oppression.
Someone’s doing some oppressing, all right. But it’s not Trump. It’s the government labor unions that tried to stop those 75,000 workers from making their own decision about what’s best for them.
From the moment the president announced his buyout plan, government unions announced they’d fight it. They sued the administration, claiming the buyouts were illegal. While a Democrat-appointed judge temporarily put the buyouts on pause, within a few days, that same judge ruled that the union lawsuit couldn’t proceed. There’s nothing bad with offering federal workers the kind of voluntary buyout that workers in the private sector often receive.
Unions tried to block workers from accepting generous offer
But the government unions weren’t just wrong to sue. It was even more wrong for them to stand in the way of the workers they claim to represent.
Clearly, huge numbers of federal employees saw value in Trump’s offer. There are many reasons so many workers found this attractive − reasons that unions chose to ignore.
Imagine you’re a 60-something federal worker who long planned for your career to end soon. Why not take the buyout and retire early, with eight months' worth of extra cash? But the government unions said no, you shouldn’t be allowed to do that.
Or imagine you’re a 30- or 40-something government employee who’s looking for a career change. Getting eight months’ salary is the cushion you need to go out and find a better job, giving you financial security while you search. But the unions tried to stop you, too.
Each of those 75,000 federal workers had a reason for taking the buyout. But instead of defending their interests, the government unions tried to stifle their freedom.
It’s hard not to conclude that the unions did it for control. Unions don’t like the idea of workers making their own decisions, because it proves they can be more effective working directly with their employer. Workers are more than capable of calling the shots, especially when it’s their future on the line.
Unions bargain for yoga pants and smoking
This is only the latest reason to question how well federal collective bargaining works for federal employees.
The unions claim to represent workers’ interests and by law are given a monopoly to represent everyone on a job, but as my organization showed in a report last month, they’re bargaining over many things that frankly don’t matter to government employees and certainly are not an effective and efficient use of taxpayer resources.
These unions are bargaining with the federal government over the height of cubicle desk panels. They’re demanding smoking areas on federal properties where smoking is banned. And government unions are even negotiating over workers’ right to wear spandex in the office.
Is that really why workers join a union? To protect their ability to smoke and wear yoga pants? And every time unions negotiate over these things, taxpayers get hit, because they’re paying for the bureaucrats who have to sit at the bargaining table to negotiate for things like the right to wear spandex.
Even as they say they are representing workers, government unions are securing taxpayer perks for themselves. To choose just one example, a union was allowed to use half of a Veterans Affairs hospital wing, mainly for the benefit of the union president. Is that really worth the taxpayer expense or a real benefit to union members?
A reexamination of federal collective bargaining is long overdue. It costs taxpayers, whose money is being spent inefficiently and ineffectively on government union demands. And most important, it may not work for many government workers − like the 75,000 who took Trump’s buyout despite unions’ best efforts to block them.
F. Vincent Vernuccio is president of the Institute for the American Worker.