The American Federation of Government Employees is calling for the White House to remove the commissioner of the Social Security Administration, Michael Astrue, after the agency denied a union proposal to allow employees to refuse face-to-face interviews with people exhibiting flu symptoms, and also partly stemming from a recent class action suit.
Exactly how the union expected the agency to carry out or administer such an “abatement” policy remains unclear, but AFGE says the agency is forcing employees to choose between their health and their jobs by forcing them to interview anyone and everyone.
According to the union, SSA’s “chief negotiator for mid-term bargaining on abating H1N1 told AFGE members that H1N1 is not a serious communicable disease, contradicting the Centers for Disease Control and SSA’s own chief medical officer.”
It says SSA managers have threatened disciplinary action against employees that refuse to conduct interviews.
The class action involved accommodations for the blind that the union says warrants removing the commissioner when taken considered along with the flu policy.
A federal judge in California reportedly ruled in favor of the American Council for the Blind, which was trying to get the agency to correspond in Braille and provide CD-ROMs for the blind, finding that SSA “has been quick to find lame excuses for noncompliance but exceedingly slow to favor accommodations.”