Ryan Cowdin
Thu, 11/18/2021
On October 20, 2021, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) released two guidance memos for all federal agencies to promote federal union membership. Both memos implement President Biden’s Executive Order (EO) 14025, “Worker Organizing and Empowerment,” which affirms that union membership “gives workers the means to build the power to ensure that their voices are heard in their workplaces, their communities, and in the Nation” and declares that “it is the policy of [the Biden] Administration to encourage worker organizing and collective bargaining.” The EO and guidance hope to build on the 1.2 million federal employees—57% of the non-postal Executive Branch workforce—that are already union members.
OPM’s new guidance strongly encourages all agencies to take certain steps to promote unionization, including:
- stating in all job openings whether the position is in a bargaining unit, including the applicable local or chapter number;
- allowing local unions to participate in the new employee orientation process (which may require collective bargaining to determine how the union(s) will be a part of this process);
- providing new bargaining unit employees with information regarding their rights under the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute (FSLMRS); and
- providing current bargaining unit employees notice of their rights under the FSLMRS on a quarterly or biannual basis.
The guidance memos also include template notices that agencies may provide to their employees. These templates describe the core union rights established by the FSLMRS and include the contact information for the union so employees may obtain more information about joining.
