Exclusive | Workers at Defense Health Agency spent $3.3 million and 87,000 hours working on their own union benefits

Federal workers tasked with taking care of the men and women in the military spent 87,000 hours and $3.3 million taking care of their own union benefits — and taxpayers footed the bill, The Post has learned.

During fiscal years 2023 and 2024, union staffers at the Defense Health Agency (DHA) — which oversees the TRICARE health benefits for US troops — charged the federal government for the time they spent working on contract negotiations, eking out fringe benefits and other union duties, according to a report obtained by Sen. Joni Ernst’s (R-Iowa) office.

Of the $3.3 million spent on “union time,” about $190,000 was spent on negotiating a labor contract for workers at the agency since April 2023.

“During this period our agency was undergoing a significant transition aimed at stabilizing and enhancing our labor relations process,” DHA said when asked about the large expense.

At the time, only about 36% of seats at the agency’s headquarters were occupied, according to the findings.

DHA’s multimillion expenses on taxpayer-funded union time is the largest figure that Ernst’s office has released during its investigation of the use of taxpayer resources on union-related expenses across federal agencies.

Ernst, an Army veteran and leader of the Senate DOGE caucus, has been probing federal agency use of taxpayer-funded union time and previously championed legislation requiring federal workers to reimburse the government for time and resources spent on union activities.

“This report on the Defense Health Agency highlights everything that’s wrong with the federal workforce,” Ernst told The Post.

“Taxpayers were subsidizing more than $3 million of union activities while the D.C. headquarters sat at just 36% occupancy. Bureaucrats should serve the American people, not themselves.”

Other agencies had significantly lower spending on taxpayer-funded union time. NASA spent about $400,000 last year, while the Nuclear Regulatory Commission spent about $420,000 on it in 2024.

Federal unions are restricted from negotiating benefits and pay by the Federal Service Labor Management Relations Statute. Instead, benefits and pay are determined by law set by Congress and federal regulations.

But federal unions can negotiate over more minor aspects of working conditions.

“This includes things like the height of cubicle panels, securing designated smoking areas on otherwise smoke-free campuses, and the right to wear Spandex at work,” Rachel Greszler, a senior research fellow on workforce and public finance at the Heritage Foundation, previously told The Post.

Back in 2019, the Office of Personnel Management released comprehensive data on taxpayer-funded union time and concluded that the entire federal government had spent at least $135 million on it that year.

After 2019, OPM stopped tracking that data.

Back in February, Ernst requested data from 24 federal agencies. The Trump administration has since directed federal agencies to furnish that information.