VET Protection Act of 2017

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1293) to amend title 5, United States Code, to require that the Office of Personnel Management submit an annual report to Congress relating to the use of official time by Federal employees, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of my bill, H.R. 1293, to amend title 5 of the United States Code to require the Office of Personnel Management to submit an annual report to Congress relating to the use of official time by Federal employees.

Mr. Speaker, I am here today to talk about a bill that would provide taxpayers with greater transparency of official time. ``Official time'' is that term that describes when Federal employees do union work on the taxpayers' dime.

The only standard provided by the statute authorizing official time is that the employees perform union work on official time in a manner that is ``reasonable, necessary, and in the public interest.'' Currently, Federal law does not require agencies to report, annually, on the amount of official time their employees perform.

Until March of this year, the Office of Personnel Management had not reported on official time since fiscal year 2012. When the report was released in March, the data was out of date, containing information from fiscal year 2014.

While the Office of Personnel Management may request that agencies provide data related to official time, OPM does not have any set of standards or procedures prescribing the collection of official time data. Considering the burden that official time puts on the taxpayer, more stringent reporting is necessary.

The latest data provided by OPM shows that taxpayers paid $162 million for salary and benefits related to work done in official time in fiscal year 2014, up from $157 million 2 years earlier in fiscal year 2012.

Agencies reported that bargaining unit employees spent a total of 3.5 million hours performing representational activities on official time.

The current lack of stringent reporting requirements, as well as the broad interpretation of the statute's sole requirement that official time be carried out in a way that is reasonable, necessary, and in the public interest, have clearly opened the door to abuse.

The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform identified several cases where employees on official time engaged in all sorts of inappropriate activities while on taxpayer-funded time, including everything from leisure to criminal activities. With greater transparency, employees will be less likely to abuse the system, which will result in less waste of taxpayer dollars.

It is by far time we require agencies to provide this information to Congress and to the public. Taxpayers deserve clear, reliable data on how many employees are performing union work on official time in lieu of their regularly assigned government duties.

To accomplish this, H.R. 1293 requires agencies to provide more detailed information to OPM regarding what their employees are doing related to official time. Specifically, the bill requires agencies to report the total amount of official time granted to employees, the average amount of time each employee spends on official time, the specific types of activities for which official time was granted, and the impact official time had on agency operations.

H.R. 1293 requires agencies to report the amount of compensation employees received in connection with the time they spent on activities in connection with official time.

Finally, the bill requires agencies to report a description of rooms and spaces agencies use to conduct official time.

H.R. 1293 will provide taxpayers with the transparency they deserve when it comes to official time.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I might just suggest to my good friend from Virginia that this is a reporting bill, that this is the same bill, as amended by their amendment, that was passed out of committee overwhelmingly, that I believe the gentleman from Virginia voted for. So there has not been any change. It is still a transparency reporting bill to make sure that we account for all the time spent in official time on the taxpayer dime. That is it.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Jody B. Hice).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I want to be clear here, because I want to make sure that we are talking about the same bill.

This bill doesn't do anything about union dues. This bill doesn't do anything other than require the transparency of reporting official time. And I would be delighted to engage my good friend from Virginia, whom I have a great deal of respect for, and I have worked very diligently on this committee with for some time, and inquire as to what transpired since this bill left committee until today that would cause him and others who were supportive of it in committee to now say that it is not?

I don't mean to misrepresent anything. While I might have opinions of what I believe, I can tell you factually that this bill is merely, and solely, and exclusively a reporting bill. If I were managing a company and I wanted to know where my resources were, I would want to make sure I managed those resources--including my human resources--so I would like to know where the time of my employees is spent.

There is no prohibition of time being spent. There is no restriction of time being spent. It is merely a reporting bill. It is requiring reporting. It is something the OPM has done before. It was started under President Carter's administration.

Mr. Speaker, I inquire of my good friend if there is anything that has changed to make his opposition now come to the floor?

I yield to the gentleman from Virginia.

And I appreciate that.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, while I understand where my colleague from Virginia is taking my comments from, I must submit that at no time did I allege that the Federal employees, all Federal employees, are committing crimes on official time.

I think just the opposite. A vast majority of our Federal employees are probably some of the best workforce that we have out there. I think that, in any workforce, you are going to have some people that don't live up to the standards of their employment. So what I merely do in my opening statement is to say that there has been a need for transparency that includes the abuse of time by some, not by all.

Again, the vast majority of Federal employees are exceptional employees, hardworking, and absolutely necessary to run this great country.

Mr. Speaker, I ask my good friend from Virginia to please reconsider, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. If I might just, again, clarify for the record, this is a reporting bill. It is a transparency bill. The standard that my good friend from Massachusetts discusses, and that I agreed with, is not affected at all by this bill.

I would have no doubt whatsoever that in similar circumstances that happened after 9/11 in those post offices, that those same employees, regardless of the risk, would do exactly what they did, because that is how valuable they are to the system. That is how valuable they are to this country.

What I can't understand is what has transpired between voting this out of committee to today that has changed the opinion.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, might I inquire how much time is remaining?

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

I appreciate the comments from my friend from Virginia, and I will reiterate my comments made earlier here on this floor that we are very grateful for the Federal workforce that we do have and that they are, by far, one of the best human resources in employment in the world. We are grateful for their service.

As in any case, there might be some bad ones, but, more importantly, all this bill requests is that we just report the transparency of their services and official time. It is neither an indictment nor restriction on Federal time whatsoever, and, in fact, can be used as a tool for Federal employees to justify some of the official time they are doing for the benefit of not only their colleagues, but also this great country.

Mr. Speaker, I would again request that Members of this House support my bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I must say, Mr. Speaker, I originally rose in support of what I thought was a simple reporting bill. In listening to my friend from Florida, this is part and parcel of the negative narrative that is sent in all too frequently on the other side of the aisle about hardworking civil servants and Federal employees. They are not all somehow committing crime on official time. Official time, in fact, has been used to the benefit of the workforce and to the benefit of management.

If this bill, H.R. 1293, is nothing but a precursor to further encroachment on the rights of Federal workers, then I will oppose this bill, and I will urge my Members on this side of the aisle to oppose this bill because, by voting for it, we are enabling something much worse to follow and have this thrown in our faces.

So, Mr. Speaker, I regret that, under the circumstances, and with the message I have just heard, I can no longer support this bill. I can no longer urge my colleagues to support this bill, and we will, in fact, urge a negative vote on this bill.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, my friend from Florida is my friend and he knows I respect him, but when you give an opening statement on a bill that goes far beyond a reporting requirement that we thought we were supporting and you use the occasion to disparage Federal workers and to characterize them in a decidedly negative way as if that somehow really described the average civil servant and what they are up to, then on this side of the aisle, we take exception. Then it is no longer a simple reporting bill; it is a precursor of bad things to come, and we are not going to be party to it. We are not going to enable that. That is why, reluctantly, I must now oppose this bill and urge my Democratic colleagues and those on the other side of the aisle who want to protect Federal employees and honor them and give them the dignity and respect they deserve also to oppose this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I now am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton), my dear friend.

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia.

Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend because I am going to run out of time. I must say to my friend, my prepared remarks were designed to support this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I must say, the gentleman from Florida, who is an honorable man and a friend, and we have collaborated, but his own words transformed what this really was. They persuaded us that by voting for this, we are not voting for a reporting bill. That is just the beginning.

My friend from Florida is the one who characterized criminal activity on official time, and unsavory things going on on official time, and allows that to dangle out there as if that characterizes Federal employees generally.

I say to any friend--and I thank him for yielding--that has transformed our perception of this bill. This is no longer a simple reporting bill--although technically that is what it is. It is a precursor, apparently, to an assault of Federal employees--and on official time, specifically--and we cannot be partners to that. We cannot be enablers to that.

Mr. Speaker, therefore, we must oppose this bill, in light of the context my friend from Florida himself said.

Mr. Speaker, I am certainly gratified for the clarification of my friend.

It now gives me great pleasure to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from

Massachusetts (Mr. Lynch), my good friend and a senior member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to my friend from Massachusetts.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Mrs. Lawrence), my dear friend.

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Michigan.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Jersey (Mrs. Watson Coleman), my friend.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Sarbanes).

Mr. Speaker, I agree with my friend from Maryland. Official time is a very useful tool in the Federal workplace, both for management and for labor, and has proved its worth over the years.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Takano).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

In attempting to summarize, Mr. Speaker, I do want to reiterate that my friend from Florida is an honorable man. When he says this is about one thing, I believe him. Perhaps in the introduction to this bill there was a characterization that was not intended, and I accept that explanation.

Federal workers are hardworking civil servants. They serve the American people. I know my friend from Florida agrees. The overwhelming majority of them are dedicated. They seize a mission every day, whether it be at the VA, the Social Security Administration, or our Nation's parks. They are dedicated to the proposition that they are there to serve the American people. It is important to honor their service, to respect their service, to not allow even the inference to be drawn that a negative example somehow could be construed as characteristic of the whole, for that is false.

That is the narrative we Democrats and, hopefully, a number of Republicans want to change, because it is not true. We want to honor those civil servants.

All too often, our civil servants have become pin cushions. Again, I know my friend from Florida does not intend that, but there are others who have intended that. That sparks something, certainly, on this side of the aisle and with this Member, who represents a lot of Federal employees and cherishes their service. For us, it is a very personal matter.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Virginia for yielding, and I join him in opposition to this bill.

While originally my remarks would have been much kinder to the bill, and I may have considered supporting it, I did not consider it favorably in committee. I know we had a voice vote on that. But in light of the unfortunate remarks that imply that there was illegal activity going on by Federal employees, and that is why we need this bill that is before us right now, I do have to agree with the ranking member, the gentleman from Virginia, that this bill is, indeed, a part of the vanguard of legislation to severely restrict and eliminate the use of official time.

Under the bipartisan Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, a Federal employees who serves as a union steward or union representative may be granted official time to perform activities that--and this is the important standard that is in the bill--the gentleman from Georgia indicated that we need this bill because there is no standard.

The standard in the Civil Service Reform Act requires a number of things: It requires both labor and management to agree on the use of official time, and that official time be ``reasonable, necessary, and in the public interest.''

That is the standard today, and every single Federal workplace-- management and labor--have to agree that the use of official time is reasonable, that it is necessary, and that it is in the public interest. That is a great standard, and that is what has been going on so far.

While there are those who seek to curb or repeal the statutory right and may claim that it amounts to misuse of government resources, let me offer you another concrete example of why official time is critical to the Federal workplace and serves the interests of the American people and taxpayer.

In the wake of the devastating terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the Nation also endured a series of anthrax attacks perpetuated through the United States mail system against media offices in Florida, New York, and also Federal offices here in the Nation's Capital. The affected facilities included the Brentwood Mail Processing and Distribution Center here in D.C., that is now named after two dedicated postal employees, Thomas Morris and Joseph Curseen, who lost their lives to anthrax exposure at that facility.

This is immediately after September 11. They were postal workers. They died of inhalation of anthrax poisoning because of the jobs they were doing on behalf of this country. The risk of further anthrax attacks threatened the safety of our postal workforce. I had two sisters with young children at the time working at the post office, and I knew of this well.

It jeopardized the safety of our postal workforce and customers, as well as the free flow of information and commerce that the constitutional responsibility of the United States Postal Service requires.

But rather than refusing to go to work in a dangerous workplace, by the use of official time, the management of the United States Postal Service, and the union representatives of the United States Postal Service sat down and worked out a measure where the union agreed to send their workers in, the mail kept running to every home and business in America, but the postal workers absorbed that danger on their own because they knew that steps were being taken to keep them and their families--because the threat was that anthrax would get on their clothes and they would bring that back to their own homes. We worked that out.

That agreement would not have been worked out but for the use of official time--and a lot of official time that was used in that crisis. That is the responsibility that those union representatives had to the workers. They have to guarantee a safe workplace for those workers, and that is why we should vote against this bill. This is a wolf in sheep's clothing, and we ought to vote this down.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend from Virginia for yielding to me.

You haven't heard any discussion of abuse of official time because there is no record of abuse of official time. My colleagues on the other side simply want to get rid of official time, as they have wanted to do for decades.

A little background: Federal employees have no right to strike, as they do in the private sector. In return, though, the time-honored right to organize and represent employees in their official capacity on matters relating to the workplace has always been in place under Republicans and Democrats alike.

Remember, there is also no requirement to join a union in the first place; yet unions must represent all workers, regardless of their membership or not.

The bill on the House floor, H.R. 1293, is unnecessary. Official time reports are already required. This is a redundant bill.

If my friend is worried that these reports haven't been timely, as he implied then he can do that administratively or do it in this bill. The reason he doesn't do it in this bill is this bill is a cover. It is a cover for two pending bills which are already out of committee. I expect them on the floor any minute now, although, notice the sequence.

Mr. Speaker, this seemingly vanilla bill, is going to be followed by the real bills that my colleagues are after. They are parallel bills. They essentially eliminate official time to represent workers.

Now, why is official time important? They are important for the operation of the Federal Government itself. And why is that? Because there are always going to be disputes and contention between management and labor. Official takes away time that would otherwise be wasted and allows the parties to go to the table and work matters out.

Mr. Speaker, these two bills are a frontal attack on official time, but they actually stab federal employees in the back. One bill would make it virtually impossible for union members to volunteer their time unless they wanted to give up parts of their retirement benefits.

What kind of quid pro quo is that? What do you want to do next? Reduce pay if a union rep uses official time?

The next bill designates employees who cannot represent other employees. This bill looks like something you would expect from countries where there is no right to organize.

This bill reduces the amount of dues unions can collect, even though they are collecting dues on their own time and not official time. This is a brazen attempt to eliminate the fair-share fee, non-union workers pay for being represented equally with union members, and allow free riders to be served free of charge. This is the beginning of an out- and-out assault on the freedom of workers to organize.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida for yielding this time.

I agree with this great reporting bill. The American people have a right to at least have a reasonable expectation that the Federal Government knows what its employees are doing. Unfortunately, we all know that doesn't always happen, particularly when it comes to the practice of official time. It is amazing to me how little information there is, particularly as it relates to the reporting aspect, as to what is happening under official time.

For those who don't know what it is, Mr. Ross mentioned it well. Established under the Carter administration, official time allows Federal employee union members to conduct union activities during their work-hours of the agency for which they were hired even if the union activity has nothing to do with their job description. Surprisingly, the Federal agencies are not required to report to Congress the amount of time that employees are spending conducting union business.

Some of my colleagues may disagree about the value of official time. I get that. The gentleman from Virginia and I see differently on this. I certainly oppose the abuse of official time, so we see differently on this.

But I think we can all agree that the American people at least have the right to know the extent to which official time is being used. So, although we may disagree somewhat on policy, I think we can certainly find common ground to promote accountability and transparency within the Federal Government.

As Mr. Ross mentioned a while ago, the OPM has come out with a study: 3.5 million work-hours spent on official time. That is a lot if it was just dollars, but when you take 3.5 million work-hours multiplied by dollars involved, this is a significant issue that needs to be addressed.

This bill, H.R. 1293, grants the OPM the ability to get necessary information from Federal agencies so that we have a more comprehensive understanding of the official time usage. Currently, there are no standards for OPM to find that kind of information.

So this bill does not eliminate, nor does it restrict, official time usage; it simply shines light on the practice. Again, I believe we can find common ground that the American people deserve to know how their tax dollars are spent.

This is common sense. It is good governance. It is a bill that I believe we should all be able to get behind. I am pleased to support this bill. I am honored and pleased to do so in the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. I urge all our colleagues to support it now.