OPM Instructs Agencies to Restart Union Talks to Reverse Trump-Era Orders

An Office of Personnel Management (OPM) memo dated March 5, 2021 provides instructions on how agencies should reverse course on several Trump-era workforce policies. A number of executive orders were passed in 2018 that specifically restricted union activity and made it easier for federal employees to be fired.

Kathleen McGettigan, acting OPM director, stated in the memo, “Agencies must identify those provisions and … engage impacted unions, as soon as practicable, to suspend, revise or rescind the actions covered.”

If agencies are still in the middle of re-writing their collective bargaining agreements with unions, they must be recrafted to adhere to the Biden executive order that rescinded several Trump-era workplace executive orders. Unions had expressed prior to last week’s memo that agencies were not working to return to the bargaining table as quickly as they should and that OPM had not given them enough guidance on ways to keep agencies accountable during the process.

Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) said of the memo, “Not all agencies have acted promptly. Today's action by OPM is an important step toward restoring federal workers' union rights across the government and enforcing President Biden's order rolling back the illegal union-busting executive orders issued by the previous president."

Furthermore, federal employees can now go back to using official time for union activity- something that was limited during the Trump administration. As far as the Trump administration’s creation of a Schedule F classification is concerned, agencies have been directed to stop any actions related to the new schedule.

Bob Corsi, interim President at the Senior Executives Association (SEA), applauded the Schedule F rescission in a statement saying, “It would have been easy for President Biden to use Schedule F to embed his own unaccountable, partisan personnel into the federal system. Instead, President Biden chose against executive overreach in favor of responsible governance.”

However, Corsi urged the Biden administration to careful balance workforce protections and accountability when stripping back actions by the Trump administration.

Corsi said, “SEA does not support the ‘union busting’ executive orders clearly aimed at undermining union protections. However, employee protections and accountability are not mutually exclusive. Former-President Trump’s executive orders calling for a stronger and streamlined accountability system had merit. Public trust in government has declined considerably over the last 50 years, accountability and transparency play a critical role in rebuilding this trust.”

Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA), said of the memo, “With this clear guidance, the Biden Administration continues to support and bolster our public sector unions. Unions deserve a fair collective bargaining forum. Contract provisions forced upon them in bad faith by the Trump Administration should be immediately invalidated."