Largest Federal Employee Union Files Lawsuit Against OPM

John Zottoli
July 6, 2015

Largest Federal Employee Union AFGE Files Class Action Lawsuit Against OPM

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) has filed a lawsuit against the Office of Personnel Management to hold the agency and other defendants accountable for the devastating cyberattacks.

The cyberattacks against OPM compromised the personal and security files of some 18 million or so current federal employees and retirees.

The federal class action lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, has the AFGE and two individuals, Robert Crawford and Adam Dale, as lead plaintiffs. The class members and plaintiffs include current, former, and prospective employees and contractors of the U.S. government.

The lawsuit seeks injunctive relief, and actual and statutory damages. Other than OPM, the other named co-defendants are OPM Director Katherine Archuleta, OPM Chief Information Officer Donna Seymour, and KeyPoint Government Solutions.

Injunctive relief in this case means the OPM needs to beef up its data security. A statement issued by AFGE National President J. David Cox Sr. and others says that “Even after this historic security breach, OPM has continued to use poor data security practices and inferior private-sector strategies to solve its security woes.”

They are also seeking more information about the data breach. “Despite putting government employees and their loved ones at significant personal and financial risk, OPM has failed to reveal the full scope of who was specifically impacted by the data breach and the extent of the information taken.”

The statement adds that AGFE is working with its federal employee and retiree members to ascertain the breadth of the breach and obtain feedback on OPM’s response.

OPM Director Katherine Archuleta says in a blog post on the OPM website that “I want to personally apologize for the inconvenience, but know that we take very seriously the responsibility OPM holds in securing Federal employee data. Improving OPM’s IT security posture is the utmost priority as we work to recruit, engage, and honor America’s talented and hardworking Federal workforce.”

The class action lawsuit is no doubt rather an unprecedented and extreme step by the largest federal employee union that represents 670,000 federal employees and DC government employees. But AFGE feels that since OPM is unwilling to provide adequate assistance, they have to take this step to gather more information and hold the agency accountable.

It’s a sad commentary on OPM’s operational processes, since their inability to secure data created the problem, and now they’re digging an even deeper hole because of their inability to provide enough data to the affected federal employees.