Trump admin goes around the courts to weaken Federal Unions…

President Donald Trump suffered a major legal setback last August in his effort to deconstruct the administrative state when a federal judge struck down key portions of three executive orders aimed at weakening federal unions and making it easier to fire government employees.

But since then, the administration has been achieving the same goals through a different avenue ― the bargaining table. And they’ve done it with an assist from presidential appointees whose job is to referee labor disputes within the federal government.

As federal agencies negotiate new union contracts with their workers, many have been pressing for the same types of management-friendly provisions Trump sought through the executive orders. Enabling this process has been the seven-member Federal Service Impasse Panel that, after Trump’s appointments, is now made up entirely of Republicans.

When an agency and a union reach a stalemate, the dispute goes before the impasse panel. The result is a very challenging environment for unions. In one recent case involving the Department of Health and Human Services, a union representing 14,000 workers at the agency lost the majority of its arguments before the impasse panel, which rewrote significant portions of the contract in favor of management.

The new rules would tighten up workers’ telecommuting rights, make it easier for supervisors to reject workers’ requests for leave, and allow the agency to start charging the union to rent office space ― one of the goals of Trump’s executive orders.

Union supporters say such changes are a bigger deal than they might seem. Federal unions generally cannot bargain over pay and major benefits. If agencies succeed in chipping away at the matters the unions can bargain over ― like the discipline process, telework arrangements and other work rules  ― then some workers might not see a point in being members anymore….

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