H.R. 1461 would limit the use of official time by employees of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and would require the department to track the use of such time by its employees. Official time is paid time off from assigned government duties to represent a labor union. As part of their union contracts, VA employees can use part or all of their working day, up to a contractually agreed upon number of hours per year, to work in support of employee unions. Under section 2, no VA employee could dedicate more than 25 percent of their work time to such purposes, and some VA employees would be completely prohibited from using work hours for union related activities. Further, no VA employee would be allowed to use official time to engage in political activities or activities related to lobbying.
VA’s agreements with employee unions specify the total number of hours that may be spent on official time rather than the number of people who are authorized to use official time. Thus, CBO expects that under the bill, the number of hours spent on official time would be spread over a larger number of people, but the total hours would not change significantly.
