Taxpayer-Funded Union Time Usage in the Federal Government FY2024

In August 2025, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issued a report on the costs of allowing the use of official time for collective bargaining (i.e. union activities) in fiscal year (FY) 2024. OPM's study claimed that such costs had increased dramatically since 2019 — the last time such an analysis was created. "Taxpayer-funded union time" (TFUT) is the paid time federal employees spend on union representational activities, and is generally legally authorized under 5 U.S.C. § 7131. This report tracks the TUFT reported by agencies in FY2024, reporting a significant increase. However, the methodology behind the reporting is not entirely clear, and in at least one place a methodological decision likely accounts for some of the increase. Specifically, 63 agencies provided data in 2024, while 54 agencies provided data in 2019. This report compared the total hours reported in those two years, without accounting for the increased number of agencies responding in 2024. It is not also not clear, for example, whether agencies contemporaneously tracked TUFT or gave retrospective TUFT numbers to OPM. However, setting aside potential methodological issues, the report does report that TUFT hours increased nearly 25% between 2019 and 2024, without a corresponding increase in union membership.