THE KINGDOM OF NTEU – Part II

This series is about how the NTEU Constitution & Bylaws grants the union’s president almost unlimited power, leaves members with few ways to check the abuse of that power, and creates an environment in which the NTEU leader can rule more as a king than a democratic president. This edition addresses how powerless the NTEU national executive board is.

The NTEU National Executive Board

FIRST

The NTEU constitution and bylaws (C&B) prohibit the members with the most union leadership experience, union interest, involvement, and electability from serving on its national executive board (EB). That bars about 1,000 members from seeking election to the EB. None of the other three unions being used as comparison in this series, i.e., NLRBU, NATCA, or AFGE, have any similar rule in its C&B.

NTEU does this by limiting a member to serving in only one union elected office at a time. (Part III, Sec. 10) So, whether they are the 6th V.P. for their union local devoting only about ten hours a year to the union or its president, the NTEU C&B penalizes them for getting elected to that local position.  It also denies the members the chance to elect the person they deem most fit to serve on the EB at the national level of the organization simply because they also hold local office. Both are arguably violations of law which give every member in good standing the right to run for office and the right to nominate any other member for office. (29 CFR §458.2(a)(1) and §458.29)

There is no obvious reason for barring members holding some local office from the 15 national officer positions on the EB.  Those EB jobs are unsalaried and demand only two weekends of time during the year.  The NTEU C&B proclaims that holding two offices simultaneously is a conflict of interest (Part. III, Sec. 10), but merely stating that does not make it so. Many unions permit members to serve in two elected positions simultaneously, e.g. as secretary/treasurer. NTEU actually encourages that its locals do that. Disenfranchising over 1,000 candidates for office is not a reasonable rule; indeed, it denies the union the ability to develop more leadership talent through experience at the local and national level. What it does do is protect the incumbent NP from any local leader gaining national leadership experience and becoming a strong challenger in the next election.

As a result, the NTEU EB is largely filed by federal retirees who no longer have easy access to the worksites where their electorate work, a direct interest in working conditions, or ongoing awareness of what is happening in the workplace.

SECOND

Denying over 1,000 members with proven electability and voting clout from serving on the national EB is the most unusual mechanism for limiting the board’s leadership influence inside the union—not to mention its check and balance role. But, it is hardly the only one. The EB has few substantive rights associated with the oversight, check and balance roles.

NTEU spends over $30 million a year and has over $40 million in investments. (As of March 31, 2026. U.S. Dep’t. of Labor reports, NTEU has more surplus cash in investments than the other three unions combined.) All of that is currently under the sole control of one person, i.e., its NP, because the union has no independently elected Treasurer. If monies are misspent by the NP or worse, the EB members would likely be liable under their statutory fiduciary duty (29 CFR §458.31). A defense of “we just chose not to know anything about millions of members’ money” would not carry much weight.

One way to reduce its civil and criminal exposure would be to create a finance committee of the board that is given very substantial access to expenditures, contract commitments, investments, etc. For example, the NATCA C&B creates a National Finance Committee (Art. V, Sec. 8) and gives it “…access to review all financial records of the Association.” (Art. IX, Sec. 11)  It also obligates the NATCA EVP, NATCA’s de facto treasurer, to answer any questions the committee has. In an age when all financial information is online in real time, there is no excuse for a union EB to trust only one person with the money and information about the money. The AFGE C&B obligates the NP to appoint a Budget Committee to exercise oversight. In contrast, the NTEU C&B only has a rather odd provision stating, “Subject to the approval of the National Executive Board at its next meeting, the National President may expend NTEU resources….(Art. IX, Sec. 5)  A clear way to say that would be, “The NP can spend money at will and we EB members will justify it later.”  It is a little late for oversight if the Board must wait up to six months to see what is going on.

Here is an actual example of why others need to know what the NTEU NP is doing with union money.  In January 2025 I found that the union’s annual LM-2 report not only had substantial errors, but also evidence of very poor money management.  I pointed out to the NP that the reports showed that for 2024 NTEU had invested millions in a mutual fund that increased about .7% that year according to Morningstar. In contrast, the total market increased about 23% during that time. The low-earning fund also had an expense ratio 30 times higher than total market funds. Once I demanded to see the union’s investment records, NTEU promptly switched to a fund that did much better during 2025, i.e., a gold fund with a 47% gain over one year.  The NTEU EB should have been the one to spot this problem, not a long-retired member. The remedy is that the board creates a sub-committee that shares investment and other financial decision-making with the NP.  The EB should also demand a full list of ALL NTEU investments and their return/yield data for each semi-annual meeting. (The federal LM-2 report only requires disclosure of investments exceeding 5% of the union’s total investments.) As I said in Part I of this series, as things stand today, the NP could put the whole $40,000,000.00 the union has to invest in some wildly speculative investment and the board would neither know about it nor have any role in the decision.

Although not as critical as financial oversight, a union EB should also closely watch what goes on with staff HR matters, especially if its supervisory, managerial, and confidential employees can be fired for no reason at all and/or pressured into signing gag orders about what they know or saw.  Under current NTEU rules, the NP can and (some have) pushed employees into signing gag orders in return for hundreds of thousands of dollars without any known EB awareness. (Disclosure: In 2014 the NP gave me over a half-million dollars via what she insisted be a secret agreement kept from the EB to leave NTEU and remain quiet about a scheme I uncovered to manipulate a local’s elections at the expense of the local’s African American members.) The EB should have a HR subcommittee that is involved whenever staff are to be disciplined, non-disclosure agreements are proposed, gag orders are to be purchased, bonuses are to be handed out, severance agreements are signed, etc. It should also be involved if staff or someone outside the union file charges against staff or officers.

THIRD

A third serious design flaw in the NTEU C&B is that it permits the NP to stop any EB oversight or appeal jurisdiction if in the NP’s sole subjective discretion she does not believe that charges against her are serious enough or detailed enough to let the EB review them.  I wrote about this in the FEDSMILL post entitled, “NTEU’s Board Votes for Less Member Democracy.” Therein I discuss how the current NP dismissed charges against her as neither serious nor detailed enough even though she was charged with violating federal law and regulation in a six-page, single spaced letter. In all likelihood, this violates members’ right to free speech (29 CFR §458.2(a)(2)) which includes the right to address the union EB about internal union affairs. More significantly, it confirms that the NP is uncomfortable with, if not threatened by, EB oversight.  (Imagine if Trump had the ability to decide which cases the courts could take.)

FOURTH

Federal regulations provide that unions should have the power to  fine, suspend, expel, or otherwise discipline any member, including any officer. (29 CFR §458.2(a)(5)) However, the NTEU C&B provides that EB can only “suspend or remove from office” the NP. That relieves the NP of any financial liability, being expelled from the union, or denied the right to run again for office. In contrast, AFGE places no limits on its board’s right to punish its NP and NATCA empowers its board to remove from office, censure, fine, suspend, expel or otherwise discipline its NP. In an act of great hypocrisy, the NTEU C&B permits local chapters to “suspend, or expel the accused from its membership and order repayment of Union funds it concludes were expended in a manner inconsistent with the local Chapter Bylaws, NTEU Constitution and Bylaws and/or applicable statutes or regulations.” (Art. VIII, Sec. 1(b)) The difference between a mere member’s liability and the NTEU NP’s calls to mind the goose and gander adage.

FIFTH

A fifth flaw in the NTEU system is that it does not require the EB to examine the most vital measures of union success or progress. These would include how timely arbitrations and negotiations are moving to conclusion, the increase/decrease in membership by chapter from year to year, the movement of regular costs, the efficiency of operations, etc.  While it would be ideal for the union to develop a strategic plan with key measures so that it can assess what needs improvement, baby steps may be the best to expect for now from NTEU.

OVERVIEW

I am not advocating for a coup in NTEU or that it be run like a commune. I support a strong union president. But I also support a strong, informed EB. Requiring a union NP to give up the right to keep her decisions secret only denies the union president the power to do things she would otherwise not want anyone to  know about.

Organizations’ boards fall into three categories. The first is that of a true “executive” which takes an active, if limited role in on-going oversight and input, making decisions where needed.  The second is more of an “advisory” board.  It offers advice when asked, but otherwise stays out of the CEO’s way.  The third is best considered an “honorary” board, which meets periodically for dinner and drinks, listens to the CEO describe how well things are going, supports whatever the CEO wants, recommends, or needs, and returns home with nothing to do for the union. NTEU’s board appears to be more honorary than anything else. While that causes the union minimum harm when it has an honest, talented, and fair NP,  it is a prescription for disaster if it ever elects someone without all three of those qualities. The current NTEU EB system provides a red carpet for a person with a king complex to assume power unequaled in any other union I have examined.

/s/ Frank D. Ferris, FEDSMILL Publisher