Thousands of US government employees get WFH deal before Trump

A Biden administration official has agreed to establish hybrid job protections for tens of thousands of Social Security workers. This is part of a series of organized labor efforts complicating President-elect Donald Trump’s efforts to transform the federal workforce.

The American Federation of Government Employees, a union representing 42,000 Social Security Administration workers, reached an agreement with the agency last week that protects telework in an updated contract through 2029, according to a note to its members seen by Bloomberg.

The new deal, signed by President Joe Biden’s just-outgoing SSA commissioner Martin O’Malley, will allow workers to “maintain current levels of telework,” AFGE chapter chair Rich Couture wrote.

Under these current rules, office work requirements range from two to five days per week and vary depending on the job, according to people familiar who spoke on condition of anonymity because the new agreement has not been made public.

“This agreement not only secures telework for SSA employees, but also safeguards staffing levels by preventing higher turnover, which in turn secures the agency’s ability to serve the public,” Couture wrote.

An AFGE spokesman declined to elaborate on the news. An SSA spokesperson confirmed that the independent agency “has written its pre-existing telework policy into its contract with AFGE” and noted that managers can still make temporary changes due to operational needs or performance issues.

Unions have been pushing the outgoing Biden administration to extend existing collective bargaining agreements with federal workers ahead of Trump’s inauguration next month, according to people familiar with the discussions who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations. Some union leaders are calling on the current White House team to issue an executive order requiring such steps.

A spokesman for the Federal Office of Management and Budget declined to comment.

Trump has asked billionaire Elon Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy to lead a new task force called the Department of Government Efficiency that aims to cut government spending and streamline operations. Musk and Ramaswamy have announced that they plan to reduce the federal workforce and eliminate the work-from-home policy.

“Requiring federal workers to come to the office five days a week would lead to a wave of voluntary layoffs, which we welcome,” they wrote in an editorial in the Wall Street Journal last month.

The Trump transition team declined to comment directly on union contracts.

“Under President Trump’s leadership, the efforts led by Vivek and Elon to improve government efficiency will combat waste and fraud in our vast federal bureaucracy,” said spokesman Brian Hughes. “They will work together to reduce excess regulations, cut wasteful spending and restructure federal agencies.”

Organized labor represents over one million federal government employees, and AFGE is the largest union of federal workers. Legally binding union contracts stipulating the terms and conditions of employment may be amended or extended during their existing term.

Although they do not supersede federal law, contract terms may limit agencies’ discretion in managing their personnel.

AFGE members of the Environmental Protection Agency ratified a contract with management in May that includes new “scientific integrity” protections designed to protect their ability to discuss their work with the media and report suspected scientific misconduct without retaliation suffer. Justice Department lawyers have teamed up with another group, the National Treasury Employees Union, to try to get the union recognized before Biden leaves office.

Collective bargaining agreements cannot deter Trump, Musk or Ramaswamy, who have signaled they want to challenge precedents that limit executive power. But failure to honor a contract could lead to lengthy legal disputes as well as protests and opposition from lawmakers.

A U.S. president “cannot simply override legally signed collective bargaining agreements without union consent,” Kenneth G. Dau-Schmidt, a law professor at Indiana University, said by email. “The US government must also stick to its agreements.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)