The Biden administration is working with federal employee unions to cement long-term guarantees of telework, says committee chair. Image: Ira Lichi/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffIn the latest sign of the importance of telework in the agenda for Republicans in the new Congress, the House Oversight and Accountability Committee has made what it called the “stay-at-home federal workforce” the topic of the panel’s first hearing.
At the hearing tomorrow, the committee “will examine how the Biden-Harris administration failed to return federal workers to the office and is seeking to hinder the incoming Trump administration’s ability to bring them back by providing long-term guarantees of telework in deals signed with federal employee unions,” said chairman Rep. James Comer, R-Ky.
He said the incoming administration “is set to be greeted by largely vacant federal government office buildings because the federal workforce is still taking advantage of the Biden administration’s outdated and detrimental pandemic-era telework policies. Not only do these telework policies jeopardize the ability of agencies to deliver vital services to the American people, but reports indicate the Biden administration is now working with federal employee unions to cement long-term guarantees of telework.”
Although the statement speaks of multiple unions, the only contract extension publicly announced to date has been at SSA, where an agreement that among other things provides for certain amounts of telework for field office employees has been extended into 2029. Martin O’Malley, who was SSA commissioner at the time but who has since resigned, is the only Biden administration-affiliated witness scheduled.
The other scheduled witnesses are from the Economic Policy Innovation Center, a conservative think tank, and the Federal City Council, a nonprofit that promotes economic activity in the Washington, D.C. area.
A bill (HR-107) to require agencies to return to pre-pandemic policies on telework was one of the first introduced in the House this year and referred to the committee. In the prior Congress, the House passed a similar bill as one of its first actions, although the Senate, then under Democratic control, never took it up.
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