Social Security

The Social Security Administration (SSA), like other federal agencies and some private sector firms, pays for approved time spent by its employees on union activities. SSA has a special fiduciary responsibility to effectively manage and maintain the integrity of the social security trust funds from which most of these expenses are paid. In a time of shrinking budgets, it is crucial that SSA, as well as other agencies, evaluate how resources are being spent and have reliable monitoring systems to support this evaluation. To ensure accurate tracking of time spent on union activities and the staff conducting these activities, SSA has developed and is testing a new time-reporting system for its field offices and teleservice centers. GAO believes that the new system should be implemented agencywide. With an improved agencywide system, SSA management should have better information on where its money is being spent.

GAO found that: (1) federal agencies have the discretion to grant employees official time for certain union activities; (2) government employee unions are significantly involved in operational and management decisions but generally cannot bargain over employees' pay and other economic benefits; (3) over the last 6 years, the time spent on union activities at SSA has grown from 254,000 hours to at least 413,000 hours annually, at a cost of $12.6 million in 1995; (4) the number of full-time union representatives at SSA grew from 80 to 145 between 1993 and 1995; (5) although SSA is developing a new system to more accurately track the time spent on union activities, it plans to replace only the automated reporting system for union representatives in SSA field offices and teleservice centers; and (6) SSA field managers stated that their having no involvement in decisions about how much time individuals spend on union activities causes problems in managing day-to-day operations. GAO also found that: (1) the Postal Service reported that 1.7 million hours were spent on union activities related to grievances in fiscal year (FY) 1995; (2) the Internal Revenue Service reported spending 527,000 hours on union activities in FY 1995; and (3) some private-sector employers pay at least some of the salaries and expenses of union representatives, while others do not.