Fort Wainwright in Alaska is one of the installations where the union and management reached agreement but have some outstanding issues.

Fort Wainwright in Alaska is one of the installations where the union and management reached agreement but have some outstanding issues. Eve Baker, Fort Wainwright Public Affairs Office

Union and Alaska Army Posts Resolve Differences Over Official Time and Illegal Contract, But Other Fights Remain

Despite agreeing to drop the illegal contract the agency unilaterally imposed on AFGE employees in 2019, union officials say management continues to resist the Biden administration’s pro-labor policies.

Management at three U.S. Army installations in Alaska this month agreed to unwind the unilateral imposition of Trump-era caps on official time as well as an entirely new contract for a pair of union locals representing civilian workers at the forts.

But labor leaders bemoaned continued resistance to implementing President Biden’s executive orders rescinding Trump-era labor policies and mandating federal agencies establish a collaborative relationship with their unions.

In 2019, management at three Alaskan military installations—Fort Greely, Fort Wainwright and Fort Richardson—unilaterally implemented President Trump’s executive order setting caps on the amount of time union officials can spend on official time, despite the fact that Trump’s edict stipulated that agencies respect the terms of existing collective bargaining agreements. And last year, the installations unilaterally imposed a completely new union contract on the American Federation of Government Employees locals 1834 and 1712, which represent civilian employees at the three facilities.

The union filed a series of unfair labor practice complaints in connection with the two incidents. The settlement agreement, in which Army management agreed to all of the union’s terms and accepted fault for the labor law violations, was reached on the eve of the parties’ hearing before the Federal Labor Relations Authority.

Bill Ward, president of AFGE Local 1834, said that while he is pleased that the agency agreed to settle the dispute, there is a lot of work that must be done to reinstitute the old union contract.

“They have to revert back to the old contract, including [memoranda of agreement, memoranda of understanding, standard operating procedures] and everything,” he said. “It’s not just one employee, it’s all employees. Everyone had their alternate work schedules changed, and now they have to go back and make them whole. With overtime rosters, since they didn’t follow the old contract, we have to go back and see who was harmed by that, who didn’t get picked for overtime that should have, and they’ll have to make them whole. That’ll be the most time consuming thing: finding all of the employees who have been hurt, and the bad part is a lot of those employees don’t even know that they were hurt yet.”

Ward said that over the past four years, he racked up more than 1,000 hours of paid and unpaid leave in order to work on representational issues that should have been covered by official time but were denied. And that doesn’t include instances where he represented employees during off hours.

“We have over 3,000 hours of official time that were denied over that time,” he said. “I’m pushing 600 hours of annual leave that I had to take during that period to do union work, and I have over 800 hours of leave without pay that I took to do union work over that time, so the agency’s going to have to reimburse me for all of that.”

But despite the recent victory, Ward said he isn’t optimistic that the Army has sufficiently changed culturally to encourage more collaborative labor-management relations, despite the efforts of the Biden administration. He noted that the attorney responsible for the violations in the recent settlement, as well as multiple failed bids to decertify his union, recently transferred to the Midwest, where he unilaterally imposed a new contract on bargaining unit employees at Rock Island Arsenal last month.

And Ward is still fighting with management about restoring the union’s office space at Fort Wainwright.

“They came back and offered a closet space in the basement of a soldier’s barracks to say ‘That’s the status quo [remedy],’” Ward said. “Well, no. You may want to relook at the definition of status quo . . . Status quo is as if you never did it in the first place. Don’t give us a different office, give us our office back.”

Eve Baker, a Fort Wainwright spokeswoman, said management “fully supports” the union, but disputed Ward’s description of the proposed AFGE office space as a “closet.”

“After the union vacated the office on Fort Wainwright in 2019, office space was offered to the union in February 2021 and again in April 2023,” she said. “The offered space includes private offices, a private conference room, a large common gathering area and kitchen. The union refused this offer and continues to request they be permitted to return to their previous location. The challenge with that request is impeded by the future demands on office space on Fort Wainwright brought on by the transformation and design of the 11th Airborne Division and a priority focus on quality-of-life efforts.”

Ward said that ultimately, efforts by Democratic administrations to “change the culture” of labor-management relations need enforcement mechanisms to be effective.

“We’ve literally been told by management officials, ‘All we’ve got to do is wait until the next administration,’—that’s literally their mindset,” he said. “That lawyer, after he got done here and when the tea leaves started showing we’d eventually win at the FLRA, he got promoted and went on to Rock Island and did the exact same thing there. The chief negotiator for the Army here for the contract we fought tooth and nail against is going to the [Army] War College because she got promoted. They’re being promoted for holding the union down: ‘Hey, good job.’”

“It doesn’t matter how many executive orders any president puts out that says you should work with the unions, with the employees’ exclusive representative, if there’s not enforcement,” Ward said. “If you want cultural change, you have to enforce it. It’s that simple.”

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.