Union That Wants Feds To Work From Home Brings Staff Back To Office To Fight Trump

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) last week said the union operatives who staff its internal offices must return to in-person work so they can be more productive in their jobs — a main focus of which is stopping President-elect Donald Trump from requiring the same of federal employees.

“The new return-to-office mandate, ordered by national president Everett Kelley, is designed to ensure that the staff is fully prepared to tackle an onslaught of Trump policies targeting the federal workforce,” The Washington Post reported, citing AFGE spokesman Andrew Huddleston. It said Kelley notified employees that beginning in January, they would be able to work from home only one day a week, down from five out of every 10 days.

AFGE’s employees, who are themselves unionized with The Office & Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU), have filed a labor grievance against AFGE, calling the move hypocritical, given that AFGE has demanded federal employees be able to work from home.

“It’s hypocritical for AFGE to champion telework rights for federal employees while treating its own staff — the very people who negotiate and lobby for these rights — differently,” Justin Perpich, the steward for OPEIU representing AFGE employees, told The Post.

With this move, AFGE seems to concede that working from the office can be beneficial for those with an important mission — but also seems to suggest that while stopping Trump requires that level of hard work, actual government jobs do not. AFGE and Perpich, whose Office & Professional Employees International Union Local 2 represents AFGE’s internal staff, did not return requests for comment from The Daily Wire. Perpich told the Post that Kelley, the union’s top manager, was violating its contract with its personnel union by changing telework policies, while AFGE said that its management had the right to do that.

Many federal employees began working from home during the COVID pandemic. But even with COVID long receded, federal employees still work from home at such rates that government buildings are only 12% occupied, according report from Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa). Trump has said he intends to call federal employees back to the office.

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Yet, AFGE last month signed a five-year contract with the Social Security Administration relinquishing management’s right to change the proportion of employee telework, essentially locking them in to a pandemic-era schedule through the Trump administration. Biden’s Social Security Commissioner, Martin O’Malley, declined to give up those rights while he was manager, but signed the contract two days before resigning his post to run for chair of the Democratic National Committee.

AFGE, which represents 750,000 federal employees, has also been signing long-term contracts with agencies that extol the virtues of telework and imply that it brings no downside to taxpayers, a Daily Wire review found. The contracts with federal agencies say things like “Telework and remote work can be leveraged as a tool to enhance talent recruitment and retention, and advancing diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility” and bring “increased productivity and performance” and “additional time for focused work” — though it apparently isn’t putting its money where its mouth is when it comes to its own workforce.

On December 18, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission signed a five-year contract that says employees can come into the office as little as two days a week. “The employer, in consultation with the union, shall maintain a Telework Program in every EEOC Office… All EEOC positions are eligible for some amount of telework,” it says.

However, unlike the Social Security Administration contract, the EEOC’s contract contains language that would allow agencies to make the same argument that union boss Kelley is now making. The EEOC contract says “The employer, with notification to the union, may terminate the Telework Program if the program no longer supports the mission of the agency or costs of the program become impracticable. If the Telework Program no longer benefits organizational needs, termination of the program must be in accordance with procedures established by the Collective Bargaining Agreement.”

Biden’s EEOC management may have been less willing than O’Malley — who drank and sang with union officials in Florida just before signing the contract — to appease AFGE because the union took a militant stance when EEOC pushed for a partial return to the office in 2022.

On November 24, the Federal Railroad Administration signed a five-year collective bargaining agreement with AFGE, saying “The Parties recognize the value that a telework program contributes to helping accomplish the mission, goals, and work objectives of the FRA in a cost-effective manner” and that it could be done “without sacrificing the efficiency of FRA operations and customer relationships.”

On August 19, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission signed an AFGE contract through 2030 saying “supervisors may approve up to 8 days (64 hours) regular telework per pay period” and “positions are telework-eligible except when the essential duties of the position prohibit telework.” Managers may only deny a telework request if it would result in a “reduction of the productivity of the Commission,” a “diminished level of services,” or an increase in costs.

The contract said that remote employees — who don’t have to come into the office at all, and aren’t required to live near an office — can’t be made to work in person unless they have at least six months’ notice and the government pays for them to move.

On June 14, the Environmental Protection Agency signed an agreement with AFGE through June 2028. It says “The Agency’s telework program has become a routine way of doing business at EPA” and “Telework eligibility shall be based on job functions and not managerial preference… When the Agency’s policies and this collective bargaining agreement conflict, the CBA shall govern.”

On April 5, AFGE signed a three-year “interim master labor agreement” with the Department of Defense’s Defense Health Agency saying “The Parties agree that telework and remote work should be actively promoted” and “All eligible employees may request a telework arrangement and requests will not be unreasonably denied.” It said all employees are eligible for telework as long as they have not been disciplined for being absent without permission for more than five days in the last year, and have not been disciplined for looking at pornography on government computers.

It also says employees can request to become “remote” employees — a much more permissive category where the employee never has to come in and can live anywhere. “All eligible employees may request a remote work arrangement. Requests will not be unreasonably denied.”

In January, the National Archives signed a five-year contract saying “All permanent positions are eligible for telework” and that “The Agency is committed to expanding the amount of work that is available for remote work and telework.” It said any employee will be eligible for telework as long as he is rated “fully successful or higher” and meets other basic criteria. It said the telework agreement will be rescinded if “the employee has been disciplined for being absent without leave for more than 5 days in any calendar year; or If the employee has been disciplined for viewing, downloading, or exchanging pornography, including child pornography, on a Federal Government computer.”

But it adds: “The Agency may rescind a telework agreement: 1. If telework diminishes employee or agency performance, after attempts to mitigate such diminishment have been unsuccessful.”