President-elect Donald Trump blasted federal “work from home” policies Monday, calling them “ridiculous” and stirring up pushback from federal employee unions.
“If people don’t come back to work, come back into the office, they’re going to be dismissed,” Trump told reporters during a news conference at Mar-a-Lago.
The issue has been thrust to the forefront in part by the incoming Trump administration’s emphasis on government efficiency, spearheaded by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.
But the issue has also gained national attention because Biden administration officials like outgoing Social Security Administrator Martin O’Malley negotiated a deal with union leaders to entrench the policies, keeping telework in place for his 42,000 employees until 2029.
Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal employee union, threatened legal action against the incoming Trump administration if the president-elect tries to upend previously bargained union deals that let federal employees work from home.
“Collective bargaining agreements entered into by the federal government are binding and enforceable under the law,” Kelley said. “We trust the incoming administration will abide by their obligations to honor lawful union contracts. If they fail to do so, we will be prepared to enforce our rights.”
According to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, there are nearly 3 million federal employees.
Kelley argued that the extent to which federal employees work from home has been exaggerated.
“Rumors of widespread federal telework and remote work are simply untrue,” Kelley said. “More than half of federal employees cannot telework at all because of the nature of their jobs, only ten percent of federal workers are remote, and those who have a hybrid arrangement spend over sixty percent of working hours in the office.”
Critics have shot back saying that effectively means that 40% of federal work hours are remote. If you remove certain workers like postal workers and maintenance workers from the equation, the percentage of federal remote work is much higher.
In particular, workers in the federal agencies in and around Washington, D.C. have largely grown accustomed to at least partially working remote.
Kelley argued the policies help the government recruit and keep “top talent.”
“Telework and remote work are tools that have helped the federal government increase productivity and efficiency, maintain continuity of operations, and increase disaster preparedness,” Kelley said in a statement Monday. “These policies also assist agencies across the government, including the Social Security Administration, in recruiting and retaining top talent.
