The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau seems beset with problems. Not only is it a federal bureau with zero constitutional authorization to even exist (in which it has lots of company), but it has been dealing with scandals over discrimination in hiring and promotions, as well as squabbles over pay scales. The management has gotten raises, but the rank and file are still at the same rate, despite inflation, which has been... well, considerable.

The rank-and-file workers at CFPB have been without a contract since 2023, as we noted in previous pieces.

Previously on RedState: New Details: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Shells Out $6M to Close Discrimination Lawsuit 

Pay Raise Fight at Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: Big Raises for Execs, Bupkis for Workers

Now, months after the contract expired, the union has brought a new ally to the discussion: Scabby the Rat.

When building trades workers take action against anti-union contractors, the labor mascot Scabby the Rat often makes an appearance on their picket lines. But for the last week, Scabby has accompanied workers wielding ballpoint pens, not wrenches, as federal employees picket outside the office of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) director Rohit Chopra.

CFPB workers from Chapter 335 of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) have been embroiled in a protracted pay dispute with the agency that has forced them to work without a contract since December 31. The conflict centers around increasing “pay bands,” or salary ranges for workers at different ranks. NTEU is pushing for an increase, without which many lower-level workers would not be able to receive merit pay or bonuses. With the contract expired, CFPB employees are now the only federal workers who haven’t received a raise or local cost-of-living increase in 2024.

Setting aside discussion of the union for a moment; this is a failure of leadership on the part of the CFPB's management. When there are financial issues, the rank and file should come first, and management should get whatever is left. That's leadership. That's something that most government managers and directors don't seem to understand.

But here, of course, there is a union contract involved.

The union’s pickets are an escalation from failed attempts to get Chopra to bargain in good faith. After he ignored a digital letter in January, NTEU drafted a revised letter with over five hundred signatures from CFPB workers and hand-delivered it to him at the CFPB Supervision Conference on March 6.

But Chopra and CFPB negotiators continued stonewalling the union and refused to meet. On March 27, NTEU national president Doreen Greenwald sent a letter to Chopra demanding that he return to the table with Chapter 335, threatening to “use every tool possible to achieve NTEU’s goal of respecting employees by providing a good compensation package for employees at the CFPB.”

Here's the problem with government unions: They often negotiate their contracts with the input of the very people who make financial decisions for their agencies - politicians. Not only that, but those agencies are not, unlike a private-sector business, dependent on actually producing value. And we see here the results, as the CFPB is now hamstrung, with both sides at loggerheads. 

Incidentally, Trump's pick for Director of the CFPB was under fire for referring to the Bureau as a "sick joke," and for refusing to ask for additional funds; it's nice to see someone telling the truth about this whole debacle.

The best way to resolve this? I know it sounds trite, but... Defund the CFPB. The CFPB is another example of the federal government wasting its time and our money. There is no constitutional justification for its existence. The public-sector union representing its employees represents a fundamental conflict of interest. It's time someone, at some point, started following the example of Javier Milei and taking these extra-constitutional bureaus off the board.

This is the way.