-By Warner Todd Huston
Some of the best “popcorn” moments in Washington have largely flown under the radar as not many have noticed the repeated body blows that President Donald Trump has Delivered to the greedy, un-American government unions and this week he did it again.
I say “popcorn moment” because Trump’s repeated attacks on the unions makes you want to break out the popcorn to watch the Democrats get angrier and angrier as Trump undermines their source of union money income.
I guess there is just so much going on that the media hasn’t spent much time on the story, but Trump’s work to force the collapse of the rapacious government unions has been epic and unprecedented. No other president has hurt the unions so badly.
The latest is the Trump administration’s effort to cancel the free office space that Barack Obama gave to the unions. You see, during the fetid Obama regime, government union officials were allowed to set up shop in government buildings without paying a red cent in rent.
So, what we had were thousands of union goons given free office space in buildings the U.S. taxpayers are funding.When Trump came to office, he apparently wondered why union officials were allowed to use tax-funded office space free of charge?
Well, it IS a good question, after all.
So, Trump issued an executive order to start tightening these rules up essentially telling the unions to pay up or get out. The effort to kick these union toughs out on the street has started with at least two federal agencies issuing orders for union officials to either pay rent, or find other offices.
Per BizPacReview:
NTEU President Tony Reardon said last week the Social Security Administration’s Office of Hearing Operations informed the union that it plans to strip it of rent-free office space unilaterally, according to Government Executive.
Health and Human Services has also proposed via bargaining on a new contract that NTEU begin paying rent for office space on agency property.
The moves come as the Office of Personnel Management released guidance last week for agencies to implement Trump’s executive orders “aimed at making it easier to fire federal workers, streamline the collective bargaining negotiation process, and curb union employees’ use of official time,” the government business publication reported.
Naturally,the unions are suing to try and vacate Trump’s order and to allow them to continue ripping of the U.S. taxpayers fro millions of dollars in rent.
The National Treasury Employees Union is fit to be tied, naturally. These union thugs are calling Trump’s move “anti-employee” — even though no real employee is effected by the order to force union officials to pay rent.
“We do not believe that the agency can unilaterally implement these anti-employee provisions without bargaining, as required by the current statute governing labor relations in the federal government,” Reardon said. “We look forward to arguing our case in federal court at the end of this month to preserve the workforce rights for the men and women of OHO.”
The fight will include bargaining with Health and Human Services.
“The office space we are entitled to under our agreements is the result of collective bargaining, agreed to in the give and take of contract negotiations,” he added. “It isn’t ‘provided.’ NTEU bargains for office space to ensure that employees have a private area to discuss their workforce matters with an NTEU representative, and that personnel documents and other materials are safely stored and secure.”
____________
“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Follow Warner Todd Huston on:
Twitter
Facebook
Tumblr
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing news, opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that wrote articles on U.S. history for several American history magazines. Huston is a featured writer for Andrew Breitbart’s Breitbart News, and he appears on such sites as RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, YoungConservatives.com, and many, many others. Huston has also appeared on Fox News, Fox Business Network, CNN, and many local TV shows as well as numerous talk radio shows throughout the country.
For a full bio, please CLICK HERE.
NOTE: If you want to comment, for some reason our Facebook comments section takes a bit of time to load. It’ll pop up soon. Thanks