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The White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment announced initiatives this week that will give employees a stronger voice in the federal workplace.
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issued guidance that will give new and existing employees more information about their collective bargaining rights. Agencies are strongly encouraged to inform new employees and job applicants about whether they are eligible to join a union and provide information on how to join. As for current employees, agencies should remind them of their collective bargaining rights on a quarterly or biannual basis and provide contact information for their union, according to the guidance.
“These initiatives will improve the professional lives of hundreds of thousands of federal workers across the country,” said National President Tony Reardon. “Strong unions help agencies more effectively serve the American public with a workforce that is empowered to speak up for positive changes and blow the whistle on wrongdoing.”
The initiatives were announced at an event at the White House on Wednesday with Vice President Kamala Harris, the Task Force chair. National President Tony Reardon was in attendance and Cheryl Monroe, an FDA scientist and president of Chapter 230 (HHS-Chicago), participated in a roundtable discussion. She spoke about the positive role NTEU plays in the workplace at the Department of Health and Human Services.
This Task Force was created by the administration to create open communication between labor and management and good faith bargaining that will attract the highly skilled workers agencies need to meet their missions.
NTEU looks forward to working with agencies where we represent employees to put the Task Force’s policies into practice, and making the federal government a model for productive labor-management relations.
Watch the roundtable here.