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President Biden once again proves he is a champion of his own workforce

AFGE members asked Biden to revoke a memo former President Trump had issued in January 2020 that gave the Secretary of Defense or their designee the authority to eliminate collective bargaining rights for civilian workers in the Department of Defense.

Biden heard our call, and he revoked Trump’s memo on Feb. 24. AFGE President Everett Kelley applauds the president’s latest action to restore workplace rights.

“President Biden’s decision to revoke this memo ensures that DoD workers will retain the right to join a union and bargain collectively for better working conditions, and it is yet another positive step by his administration to support the working people who serve our country with honor and distinction,” Kelley said.

DoD workers have had the right to join a union and bargain collectively since 1962, and since that time they have proudly supported our service members during wartime and peacetime and helped keep our country safe.

“The previous administration’s attempt to strip DoD civilians of their union rights under the guise of national security was a blatant union-busting tactic that was repudiated by lawmakers from both political parties and never acted upon by the Secretary of Defense,” he added.

Our voices matter

The revocation of the DoD memo is Biden’s latest action on a long list of executive actions he has taken to restore workplace rights for federal workers and boost their morale following four years of repeated attacks by the Trump administration that saw a hollowed-out federal workforce, including a mass exodus of federal scientists and researchers. Agencies’ missions suffered as a result of Trump’s assault on his own workforce.

Before Biden was elected President, he pledged support for federal workers and our union and vowed to undo the damage his predecessor had done.

In the first few days in office, Biden revoked Trumps’ May 2018 executive orders aimed at destroying unions and workplace rights. He rescinded Trump’s Schedule F executive order that allowed agencies to hire and fire hundreds of federal workers for political reasons. He stopped trump’s last-minute union busting rules.

See the list of Biden’s executive actions seeking to rebuild the federal workforce and boost morale here. This is the direct result of AFGE members coming together to shape our own future!

On its way out the door, the Trump administration filed a motion to dismiss AFGE’s lawsuit seeking hazard pay for federal workers who have been required to risk their health and safety by working in hazardous conditions in order to continue to perform the essential functions of the government during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Our union earlier this month opposed that motion, urging the court to deny the government’s request to dismiss the case.

“The coronavirus pandemic made thousands of jobs more dangerous than they normally would be. Recognizing that federal employees are at times exposed to dangerous conditions their jobs do not normally entail, Congress provided for hazardous duty pay and/or environmental differential pay,” AFGE argued in opposition to the motion to dismiss. “As a result of these hazardous conditions and the Government’s failure to account for these conditions in Plaintiffs’ position classifications, Plaintiffs are entitled to hazardous duty pay, environmental differential pay, and additional overtime wages to compensate for their repeated and ongoing exposure to COVID-19.”

AFGE and Kalijarvi, Chuzi, Newman & Fitch (KCNF DC) filed our lawsuit last March against the federal government on behalf of AFGE members and federal employees who were exposed to the coronavirus while performing their official duties.

Our lawsuit seeks a 25% hazard pay differential for General Schedule employees, who are entitled to the additional pay under Title 5 because they were exposed to hazardous working conditions through the performance of their assigned duties and the hazardous duty had not been taken into account in the classification of their positions. We allege that a “virulent biological” like the coronavirus would clearly qualify as a hazard under Title 5.

Similarly, Wage Grade (WG) plaintiffs are entitled to an 8% environmental pay increase for exposure to micro-organisms. The difference between GS and WG pay differentials in our lawsuit is due to the different entitlements these employees have under the law.

In the opposition to the motion to dismiss, we argued that the government based its argument on the now-defunct federal personnel manual which provided that hazard pay is only available to employees who handle virulent biologicals. The government also admitted that the examples in the manuals are not exhaustive. As such, the government’s argument that employees must allege that they touched containers containing COVID-19 in order to get hazard pay is misguided.

Since the complaint was filed, hundreds of federal employees have died and tens of thousands more have been sickened by COVID-19. Many more are suffering because they are being forced to work in unsafe environments. It is our hope that the government pays these employees the hazardous duty pay they’ve earned.

“We continue to believe that the government owes the federal employees covered by the statutes hazardous duty and environmental differential pay for continuing to go to work despite their exposure to COVID-19,” said Heidi Burakiewicz, partner at KCNF DC. “These employees are risking their health and their families’ health each day they go into work under these circumstances. Without these employees, the rest of the country couldn’t function, and we are committing to fighting to get this well-deserved compensation for them.”