Labor unions are groups of employees organized to bargain with employers over such issues as wages, hours, benefits, and working conditions. The current federal labor/management program differs from nonfederal programs in three important ways: (1) federal unions bargain on a limited number of issues—bargaining over pay and other economic benefits is generally prohibited; (2) strikes and lockouts are prohibited; and (3) federal employees cannot be compelled to join, or pay dues to, the unions that represent them. At SSA, employees are represented by three unions: the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which represents over 95 percent of SSA employees who are represented by a union; the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU); and the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE). Of SSA’s 65,000 employees, about 52,000 nonsupervisory employees are represented by the unions, and about 47 percent of those represented are dues-paying union members. Union operations at SSA are governed by a national AFGE contract and six other union contracts with individual NTEU and NFFE components. At the other federal organizations we visited, 10 major unions had national recognition: 5 at VA, 1 at IRS, and 4 at the Postal Service. A total of 165,000 employees were represented by these unions at VA, 97,000 at IRS, and 751,000 at the Postal Service. Although other unions without national recognition represented Postal Service and VA employees, the number of employees represented by these unions was less than 1.5 percent of all represented employees. There are two main categories of official time, or paid government time spent on union activities, at SSA. The category known as “bank time” in field offices, and equivalent categories in other components, refers to time that is negotiated and limited by SSA contracts with its unions. Bank time includes time spent on union- or employee-initiated grievances (complaints regarding any matter related to employment) as well as on union-initiated activities, such as training or representational duties. The category known as “nonbank time” in field offices, and equivalent categories in other components, generally refers to time spent on management-initiated activities; bargaining over changes to work assignments and working conditions (such as disallowed leave, employee work space, and equipment); management-initiated grievances; and any other time not specifically designated as bank time. In 1912, the Lloyd-LaFollette Act established the right of postal employees to join a union and set a precedent for other federal employees to join unions. The government did little to provide agencies with guidance on labor relations until the early 1960s. In 1962, President Kennedy issued Executive Order 10988, establishing in the executive branch a framework for federal agencies to bargain with unions over working conditions and personnel practices. The order established a decentralized labor/management program under which each agency had discretion in interpreting the order, deciding individual agency policy, and settling its own contract disputes and grievances. In 1969, President Nixon issued Executive Order 11491, which established a process for resolving labor disputes in the executive branch by forming the Federal Labor Relations Council to prescribe regulations and arbitrate grievances. The Council consisted of the Chairman of the Civil Service Commission, the Secretary of Labor, and an official of the Executive Office of the President. The order transferred many of the functions of the former Civil Service Commission to OPM. It also clarified language to expressly permit bargaining on operational issues for employees adversely affected by organizational realignments or technological changes. In 1970, the Postal Reorganization Act brought postal labor relations under a structure similar to that applicable to companies in the private sector in that collective bargaining for wages, hours, and working conditions was authorized subject to regulation by the National Labor Relations Board. However, like other federal employees, postal employees could not be compelled to join or pay dues to a union and could not strike. The Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 provided a statutory basis for the current federal labor/management relations program and set up an independent body, the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA), to administer the program. FLRA is composed of three members appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. The act authorized FLRA to assume administrative functions previously performed by the Council. The act also expanded the scope of collective bargaining—the process under which union representatives and management bargain over working conditions—to allow routine negotiation of some operational issues, such as the use of technology and the means for conducting agency operations. In 1993, President Clinton issued Executive Order 12871, which articulated a new vision of labor/management relations, called “Partnership.” Partnership required agencies to involve labor organizations as full partners with management in identifying problems and crafting solutions to better fulfill the agency mission. It also expanded the scope of bargainable issues. This new arrangement was intended to end the sometimes adversarial relationship between federal unions and management and to help facilitate implementation of National Performance Review initiatives, which were intended to improve public service and reduce the cost of government. See appendix I for a discussion of the history of union activities at SSA. In 1962, Executive Order 10988 permitted federal agencies to grant official time, which is generally defined as authorized, paid time off from assigned government duties for meetings between management and union representatives for contract negotiation, at the discretion of the agency. In 1971, Executive Order 11491 was amended to prohibit the use of official time for contract negotiation, unless the agency and union agreed to certain arrangements. Specifically, the agency could authorize and the union could agree to either (1) up to 40 hours of official time for negotiation during regular working hours or (2) up to one-half the time actually spent in negotiations. Over the next 4 years, a series of Federal Labor Relations Council decisions and regulations continued to liberalize the use of official time by allowing negotiations for the use of official time for other purposes. The Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 authorized official time for federal agency union representatives to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement. It gave employees a statutory right to receive official time to attend contract negotiation meetings and impasse proceedings without having to negotiate the time with management. The act also permitted agencies and unions to negotiate whether union representatives would be granted official time in connection with other labor/management activities, as long as the official time was deemed reasonable, necessary, and in the public interest. The act continued to permit agencies to provide unions with routine services and facilities at agency expense. The act prohibited the use of official time for internal union business, such as solicitation of members. SSA has a time-tracking system in place; however, we determined that some time spent on union activities has been underreported. We also determined that the official time that was reported has grown steadily over the past 5 years. Moreover, the executive order on Partnership activities is likely to increase the time spent on union activities in SSA, and perhaps in other agencies as well. To better account for time spent on union activities, SSA is planning to test a new time-tracking system and, if it is successful, use it agencywide to track time spent on union activities. Finally, although SSA has no formal system for tracking and calculating its union-related costs, it does provide estimates of such costs annually to the Congress. Our estimates of SSA’s costs for union activities in 1995 were $1.6 million higher than SSA’s estimates. SSA has a national system for reporting time spent on union activities by union representatives. This system is separate from the agency’s time and attendance and workload reporting systems. Under this system, union representatives generally fill out and submit forms to their supervisors to account for union time. The hours reported on these forms are then periodically aggregated and submitted to SSA headquarters for totaling. This time-reporting system consists of two component systems that cover roughly an equal number of employees. The first is an automated system that captures time reported by union representatives working in field offices, which are the primary point of public contact with SSA, and at teleservice centers, where calls to SSA’s national 800 number are answered. The second component is a manual system used to capture time spent by union representatives at SSA headquarters, as well as at Program Service Centers, the Office of Hearings and Appeals, and other components. Neither system is designed to capture either (1) time spent by management on union-related matters or (2) the number or names of individuals charging union time. We conducted a limited verification of time captured in SSA’s national reporting system at one SSA region and several headquarters components. By tracing source documents for union representatives’ time to reported totals in the system, we discovered additional time not captured by the two systems in these locations. These gaps occurred primarily in the manual system and resulted from inaccurate reporting from the source documents, overlooked reports for some union representatives, and uncounted reports for some organizational units during certain reporting periods. We also verified only that similar procedures were being used at three other regions, which could result in similar underreporting at these locations. We did no verification at SSA’s six other regions. Figure 1 shows the total time spent at SSA on union activities, including the additional time we discovered. The overall time spent on union activities has grown steadily, from 254,000 hours in 1990 to over 413,000 in 1995. This is the equivalent of paying the salaries and other expenses of about 200 SSA employees to represent the 52,000 employees in the bargaining unit in 1995. Figure 2 shows the difference between SSA’s national time reports and the time our limited sample revealed was actually spent. SSA reported 254,000 hours of official time devoted to union activities in 1990, 269,000 in 1991, 272,000 in 1992, 314,000 in 1993, 297,000 in 1994, and 404,000 in 1995. Because of limitations in SSA’s reporting system, it is not possible to estimate the actual time spent agencywide for any reporting period.