Official Time Usage in the Federal Government
Fiscal Year 2003

A call for Fiscal Year 2003 official time data was forwarded to Federal departments and agencies on November 3, 2003. The memorandum asked agencies to report official time hours used by employee representatives within their organizations to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) by January 30, 2004. (See Attachment 1) Agencies had been informed the previous year, in a June 20, 2002 memorandum and call for FY 2002 official time data, that OPM would be surveying them on an annual basis with regard to official time usage.

Annual reporting was initiated to reinforce accountability on the part of both labor and management, emphasizing their shared responsibility to ensure that official time is authorized and used appropriately. Management and labor are expected to develop sensible arrangements for official time that meet the needs and expectations of agencies, employees, and the ultimate customers -- the American people.

Results and findings of the first annual official time survey were consolidated into a June 2003 Summary Report桹fficial Time for Representational Activities: Fiscal Year 2002. The report was also forwarded to House and Senate Appropriations Committees, responding to an intervening concomitant congressional official time reporting requirement.

This report presents information provided by Federal departments in response to our second annual call asking agencies to provide FY 2003 official time data.

Official Time: Definition and Statutory Context

Official time is generally defined as authorized, paid time off from assigned Government duties to represent a union or its bargaining unit employees. Under the Labor-Management Relations law梒hapter 71 of title 5, United States Code桟ongress allowed official time in two broad categories.

First, employees have a statutory right to receive official time to negotiate collective bargaining agreements and participate in impasse proceedings. Official time in this category can mean time spent bargaining with management over a term agreement that sets basic working conditions for unit employees for the life of that contract. It can also mean time spent negotiating during the life of the agreement, also known as mid-term bargaining. Most mid-term bargaining takes place when the union seeks to negotiate over the procedures an agency will follow when exercising its management rights or over the impact that an agency's decisions will have on bargaining unit employees.

Second, the law permits agencies and unions to negotiate official time in connection with other labor-management activities, as long as the time is deemed reasonable, necessary, and in the public interest. Examples include time spent meeting with employees to discuss problems in the workplace, handling employee grievances or formal administrative appeals, attending meetings called by the agency, and receiving training on labor relations topics. Official time in this category generally rises or falls depending on the nature and extent of labor-management activities, but in any case is restricted by the reasonableness standard imposed by the law.

Official time cannot be used for internal union business, such as organizing new members or campaigning for office, nor can it be used for partisan political activities.

OPM's Role

In 1976, the Civil Service Commission issued a memorandum instructing agencies on how to carry out their responsibilities for authorizing official time. Agencies were also directed to establish recordkeeping systems to track official time. After finding that 18 of 26 bargaining units at four agencies had no records of official time usage, the General Accounting Office (GAO) issued a report in 1979 recommending that OPM (no longer the Civil Service Commission) direct agencies to comply with recordkeeping requirements. GAO also recommended that OPM require agencies to submit annual reports on official time.

In response, OPM issued Federal Personnel Manual letter 711-161, which required agencies to develop recordkeeping systems for official time no later than January 1, 1982. OPM did not, however, require agencies to report annually on official time as GAO had recommended. When the Federal Personnel Manual was abolished in 1994, all recordkeeping requirements for official time also were abolished.

In 1998, OPM was directed to prepare a report on official time usage for the House Committee on Appropriations. OPM was instructed to sample official time use for a six-month period. We collected and analyzed official time data from some 70 Federal agencies covering over 2,100 bargaining units. Our findings were submitted to the Appropriations Committee in November 1998 in a comprehensive report entitled Official Time and Services Used by Unions Representing Federal Employees.

As noted in the introduction to this report, OPM initiated an annual agency reporting cycle in a June 20, 2002 memorandum to agencies. That memorandum also served as a call for agencies to report FY 2002 official time data, which was consolidated and presented in OPM's June 2003 Summary Report桹fficial Time for Representational Activities: Fiscal Year 2002.

Reporting requirements were expanded in the November 3, 2003 memorandum that served as the call to agencies for FY 2003 official time data. Agencies were advised that the next reporting round will require them to report official time hours for FY 2004 broken down into four categories (term negotiations, mid-term negotiations, dispute resolution and general labor-relations), so as to allow for more comprehensive analysis and measurement of official time usage in the Federal Government. In addition, the November memorandum informed agencies of OPM's intent to have official time tracking integrated into the developing E-payroll initiative. Using E-payroll for tracking official time will lessen the administrative burden on agencies associated with OPM's annual call for official time data, and it will enhance the reliability of the data. Finally, the memorandum advised agencies of an OPM special study to look at the policies and procedures agencies follow in authorizing and tracking official time. That special study is being conducted by the Division for Human Capital Leadership & Merit Systems Accountability, with completion anticipated in tandem with this report.

FY 2003 Survey Findings

Sixty Federal departments and agencies were asked to report total official time hours used by employee representatives in FY 2003. Forty-six, encompassing 99 percent of the bargaining unit employees in the surveyed agencies, responded. The responding agencies include a total of 1,039,432 bargaining unit employees. Fourteen agencies with 9,751 bargaining unit employees did not respond. The size of bargaining units in responding agencies ranged from 405,995 in the Department of Defense to 38 bargaining unit employees in the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. (See Attachment 2)

Agencies reported a total of 4,758,147 official time hours for FY 2003. The Department of Defense reported the largest number of official time hours at 1,199,419 for the year. Its rate of official time hours expended per bargaining unit employee, a measure that allows for some comparison of agencies, fell in the lower range among responding agencies at 2.95 hours per bargaining unit employee.

TABLE 1-OFFICIAL TIME BY MAJOR AGENCY 2003, 2002, 1998

Nine agencies, encompassing 207,999 bargaining unit employees, had rates of between 7.5 and nearly 17 official time hours per bargaining unit employee and reported a total of 1,991,151 official time hours� percent of all reported official time hours. Twenty-two agencies, encompassing a total of 752,914 bargaining unit employees, reported a rate of between 2 and 5 hours per bargaining unit employee and 2,663,205 total official time hours� percent of all reported official time hours. This group includes 72.4 percent of all bargaining unit employees in reporting agencies. Fifteen agencies, encompassing 78,519 bargaining unit employees, reported per bargaining employee rates from 0 to 2 hours and 103,791 official time hours.

Total reported official time hours and the rate of hours expended per bargaining unit employee remained stable between FY 2002 and FY 2003. In fact, there were decreases in both measures. Total official time hours decreased by 4 percent over the year, from 4,954,704 hours in FY 2002 to 4,758,147 hours in FY 2003. Official time hours expended per bargaining unit employee decreased Government-wide by 2.9 percent, from 4.71 hours per employee in FY 2002 to 4.58 hours in FY 2003.

The total estimated cost of official time to agencies also remained stable, increasing only 1.6 percent, from $126,570,125 in FY 2002 to $128,637,162 in FY 2003. Central Personnel Data File (CPDF) pay data, upon which our cost estimates rest, show a Government-wide 5.7 percent increase in average adjusted base pay over the time period. The increase in total cost, in spite of a decrease in total official time hours, can clearly be attributed to the concomitant increase in Federal pay.

TABLE 2 - OFFICIAL TIME ESTIMATED COSTS
BY MAJOR AGENCY 2003, 2002 AND 1998

While total official time hours remained stable over FY 2002, some agencies did experience notable changes. The Departments of Agriculture and Energy cited significant labor union involvement in A-76 competitive sourcing initiatives, realignments and re-organizations as a major source of increases in their official time hours.

Agencies losing bargaining units to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) generally did show a decrease in their official time hours, with the hours for the entire fiscal year for most of the units involved in the move being included in DHS's report. However, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) and Federal Protective Services (FPS) bargaining units' FY 2003 official time data continued to be included in their previous home agencies' reports, the Department of Agriculture and the General Services Administration, respectively.

Agencies with higher levels of union penetration did note it as a contributing factor in the magnitude of their official time hours, with the Department of Transportation continuing to report significant hours and the highest rate of official time hours expended per bargaining unit employee. Some agencies showing decreases in official time hours cited the completion of term bargaining as a factor in that decline.

While the anecdotal narratives a few of the agencies included in their official time reports did provide some insights into labor-management relations activities and factors that affected the agencies' official time usage, the narratives do not provide sufficient information for a more comprehensive and detailed analysis of official time usage in the Federal Government. With the upcoming requirement for more detailed categorical information, we anticipate being able to provide a more comprehensive analysis of official time usage in next year's FY 2004 official time report.

Summary

Government-wide official time hours, the rate of official time hours expended per bargaining employee, and estimated official time costs remained relatively stable between FY 2002 and 2003. Total hours decreased by 4 percent, and the rate of official time hours expended per bargaining unit decreased 2.9 percent. Total estimated costs increased by only 1.6 percent, which can easily be attributed to the Government-wide annual increase in pay. This relative stability in official time usage took place even in an environment of enormous challenges having a direct impact on bargaining unit employees and necessitating the involvement of employee union representatives. These challenges included: the integration of several major established bargaining units from their previous agency homes into the Department of Homeland Security, the collaborative design of a new DHS personnel system, increasing Government operations becoming subject to the A-76 contracting-out process, and a number of agency reorganizations and realignments.

Official Time Usage in the Federal Government, Fiscal Year 2003

ATTACHMENT 1

November 3, 2003

MEMORANDUM FOR HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES

FROM: KAY COLES JAMES
             Director

SUBJECT: Official Time for Union-Related Activities

Background

On June 17, 2002, I issued a memorandum to agency and department heads describing my expectations when it comes to granting and using official Government time for union-related activities. I emphasized that labor and management officials are equally accountable to the taxpayer and have a shared responsibility to ensure that official time is authorized and used appropriately. To achieve greater accountability in this area, I instructed agencies to report to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) at the end of each fiscal year on the number of hours of official time used by employees to perform representational activities.

Discussed in more detail below are OPM's summary of official time reports for FY 2002; the official time information that agencies will be expected to submit for FY 2003; and the additional measures I plan to take to address official time practices in the Federal Government.

Summary Report for FY 2002

Agencies reported 4,765,848 hours of official time in FY 2002. This is an increase of 10 per cent since 1998, the last time that OPM collected official time data. The estimated cost of official time for FY 2002 is $114,280,000, an increase of 5.52 percent since 1998. The average amount of official time per bargaining unit employee in FY 2002 was 4.21 hours. In FY 1998, the average amount was 3.99 hours per employee.

OPM's complete agency-by-agency summary report for FY 2002 is attached. See Attachment 1.

Collection of FY 2003 Official Time Data

For FY 2003, OPM is again asking agencies to report the number of hours of official time used by employees to perform union-related activities. Agencies must submit their reports to OPM by January 30, 2004. We have prepared the attached guidance to help you prepare your reports and to answer any questions you may have. See Attachment 2.

Collection of Official Time Data For FY 2004 and Beyond

As OPM's summary report makes clear, there has been a significant increase in both the number of hours of official time and the cost of such time since 1998. I believe that new measures are needed to ensure the level of accountability that the Administration and Congress insist upon and that the American people expect when it comes to taxpayer dollars. That is why OPM will be taking the following steps to address official time use in the Federal Government:

• We will conduct a special study of the procedures used to request and grant official time for union representational activities and the way that official time hours and costs are reported. We will focus on the Government's largest bargaining units and evaluate the effectiveness of their official time practices. The study willyield crucial information about official time procedures and also help agencies better manage their resources and their labor-management relations programs. We expect to complete the study by March 2004.

• As part of our e-Payroll initiative, OPM will establish reporting mechanisms for the use of official time for union representational purposes as part of every agency's payroll system. This will ensure that all unionized Federal agencies can record and track official time and assure appropriate accountability on the part of both labor and management.

• For FY 2004 and beyond, agencies will be asked to report not only how many hours of official time are being used but what they are being used for. Such information will yield more useful data about official time practices across the Government. While we plan to issue more detailed reporting instructions for FY 2004 at a later date, here are the categories for which official time information will be sought:

• Term Negotiations�/B>official time used by union representatives to prepare for and negotiate a basic collective bargaining agreement or its successor.
• Mid-Term Negotiations�/B>official time used to bargain over issues raised during the life of a term agreement.
• Dispute Resolution�/B>official time used to process grievances up to and including arbitrations and to process appeals of bargaining unit employees to the various administrative agencies such as the MSPB, FLRA and EEOC and, as necessary, to the courts.
• General Labor-Management Relations�/B>official time used for: meetings between labor and management officials to discuss general conditions of employment, labor-management committee meetings, labor relations training for union representatives, and union participation in formal meetings and investigative interviews.