The headquarters of the American Federation of Government Employees in Washington. The union said in a May 1, 2024, statement that 199 employees in two locations in Germany had voted to join. (AFGE)
Almost 200 U.S. Army civilian workers at two locations in Germany became the latest to approve membership in the largest U.S. labor union for federal employees.
As a result of the Wednesday vote, 163 non-appropriated fund employees at the Army’s Edelweiss Lodge and Resort in Garmisch-Partenkirchen and 36 information technology staffers in Kaiserslautern will be represented by the American Federation of Government Employees.
The IT employees work at the Army Enterprise Service Desk, 2nd Signal Brigade. Kaiserslautern is home to the U.S. military’s largest overseas community.
The union’s national president, Everett Kelley, welcomed the 199 new additions to the at-large Local 14 and noted that the vote occurred as many countries were celebrating International Workers Day, which is a holiday in Germany.
Local 14 was established last year to expand representation to federal employees working for U.S. agencies overseas.
In December, 389 Army and Air Force Exchange Services workers in the Kaiserslautern Military Community also voted to join the American Federation of Government Employees.
One hundred and sixty-three nonappropriated fund employees working at the Edelweiss Lodge and Resort in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, voted to join the American Federation of Government Employees, the union said in a May 1, 2024 statement. (U.S. Army)
That was the first of what the union expects to be a series of votes on membership by federal government employees in Europe.
About 10,000 federal workers in Europe, most of whom are in Germany, are eligible to join, according to the union’s estimate.
The move to offer membership to most federal civilian workers came last year in response to dozens of complaints the union said it had received, mostly from Defense Department employees.
Among those complaints is a practice known as bait-and-switch, in which civilians move overseas to take a job offer, only to be placed in a different position once they arrive.
Lack of work-life balance and last-minute schedule changes are also issues for U.S. federal employees in Europe, said Javier Soto, a legal rights attorney in Europe for the union.
Many foreign nationals who work on U.S. bases are covered by a different union, and Soto said there have been reports of disparities in how they are treated in comparison with U.S. citizens.
“It’s understandable,” Soto said Thursday. “They do have very strong labor rules here in Germany, and they do have labor contracts, which is what we have in the U.S. for federal employees.”
Local 14 joins more than 930 other locals that make up the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents around 750,000 workers in almost every agency of the federal government.
