Congressional Staff Start Petitions to Form Union at Capitol

(Bloomberg) -- Some members of congressional staff have started petitions to form a union, extending an unprecedented wave of organizing among U.S. political workers.

Legislative employees want collective bargaining power to negotiate over issues including diversity, Covid-19 safety and sexual harassment protections, and stagnant pay that can be as low as $29,000 a year, according to members of the organizing committee of the fledgling Congressional Workers Union. 

The group, whose members requested anonymity because they lack legal protections to organize, has been organizing confidentially for a year, and is now working to sign up majorities of staff working with certain members of Congress. They plan to ask those lawmakers within the coming weeks to voluntarily recognize the union. The organization is not currently affiliated with any other existing labor union.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer have voiced support for the union drive, as have other Democratic members of Congress.

Pelosi's spokesman, Drew Hammill said in a tweet that staff “have the right to organize.” 

“If and when staffers choose to exercise that right, they would have Speaker Pelosi's full support,” Hammill said.

Representative Andy Levin, a Michigan Democrat, and a group of colleagues plan to introduce a resolution next week which would extend collective bargaining rights to House staffers, which could be enacted without Senate action, his spokesperson Jenny Byer said Friday.

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The House Democratic chiefs of staffs are expected to discuss the unionization push in their weekly conference call on Monday, according to a person familiar with the plans.

Congress passed a law in 1995 extending workplace protections to its own staff, but never ratified proposed regulations that would grant legislative staffers unionization rights.

Any attempt to organize the staff in the entire Capitol is likely to hit opposition from Republican lawmakers, many of whom represent right-to-work states and have been particularly hostile to public employee unions.

There are other potential obstacles as well. Among the questions raised by unionization, according to one senior staff member, is whether the system of setting each member's office budget -- known as a Members' Representational Allowance -- would have to be overhauled, or whether separate payroll accounts and human resource units would need to be created.

Workers on several Democratic political campaigns began winning collective bargaining in the 2018 campaign, a trend that then spread to presidential campaigns including those of Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. 

Sanders, in a tweet on Friday night, said, “We must make it easier, not harder, for all workers to form a union. That includes Congressional Staff.”

Last month the Democratic National Committee said it would recognize and bargain with a Service Employees International Union affiliate representing its employees, while the Teamsters union announced that it had signed up a majority of staff at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Employees say unionization will benefit lawmakers as well by helping reduce turnover and recruit and retain a diverse staff. The Congressional Workers Union is urging Congress to extend organizing protections to lawmakers' staffs, but in the meantime says it will press for individual members of Congress to voluntarily recognize unions of their employees.

Lower level staff members have complained for years about low pay, long hours and difficult working conditions in the Capitol. Workers say organizing efforts gained momentum in recent weeks thanks to anonymous discussions on the Instagram page “Dear White Staffers,” where staffers share stories about what it's like to work in Congress.

The push also comes as legislative employees in some state capitals, including in Oregon, have started to unionize.

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