If the wheels haven't fallen off of the bus after nearly 3 years of working from home, I'm having a really hard time seeing a good reason for why exactly workers are being forced back into the office. IMO if you want to make new hires come in - person fine, but it's been 3 years now and your existing employees have all made changes to their own lifestyles. This basically amounts to constructive dismissal for many.

I am glad the unions are sticking up for workers here in the face of stupid policy changes.

A huge number of federal employees, like myself, can’t afford to live in DC or the inner suburbs without making untenable sacrifices. I live in Baltimore and commute because of that, but the expectation is that after a year, I telework or go hybrid, so I put up with it. I imagine that making people go back into the office with the commutes that they have will massively impact on employee retention and overall quality of life, especially considering federal employees’ relatively low pay. I’m glad the unions are fighting this, and hopefully most of us can stay remote/hybrid forever.

Cant read the story without an account. Lots of employees pushing back at my agency.. long union dispute

Part I: February 13, 2023 When President Joe Biden said in his State of the Union address on March 1, 2022, that the “vast majority” of federal workers would soon return to the office, workers at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission had been waiting months for a post-Covid office re-entry plan.

Three days after Biden’s address, the EEOC’s employees were provided with a plan. It had no remote work policy and ignored months of engagement with decision-makers, Rachel Shonfield, president of the union representing more than 1,500 EEOC employees, told Bisnow.

“My phone lit up … folks were saying, ‘Why did we fill out these surveys, why did we go to these focus groups, because nobody listened!’” Shonfield said. “People were so completely demoralized.”

After the policy was unilaterally imposed in May, her union, the American Federation of Government Employees Council 216, filed an unfair labor practice charge against the EEOC. The Federal Labor Relations Authority sided with the union in June, arguing that the EEOC hadn’t been negotiating in good faith. The two sides reached a temporary agreement with a more flexible telework policy in November, but Shonfield said the dispute speaks to a broader issue: that officials are trying to "check boxes" in their return-to-office push without taking the time to understand the needs of their employees.

The EEOC case isn’t the only dispute between labor and federal agency heads over telework policies, and in a workforce that is more heavily unionized than the private sector, that could spell further trouble for the federal return-to-office push.

The federal government has faced consistent calls from office owners and local officials, especially those in D.C., to come up with a re-entry plan for the more than 2 million federal workers across the country.

But the unions representing federal workers have been clear as negotiations over re-entry plans continue that the old expectations about the federal workforce’s office presence will need to be replaced with a new reality: Telework will be a much bigger part of workers’ lives going forward.

Part II: “Federal employees have an obligation to deliver services for the American people,” said Jaqueline Simon, national policy director for AFGE. “They do not have an obligation to patronize businesses in downtown D.C.”

The pressure to return to the office has boiled into public view this year. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said in her inaugural address in January that the federal government — which employs roughly a quarter of the District’s workforce and leases or owns a third of its office stock -- had a responsibility to come up with a return-to-office plan.

“We need decisive action by the White House to either get most federal workers back to the office most of the time or to realign their vast property holdings for use by the local government, by nonprofits, by businesses and by any user willing to revitalize it,” Bowser said in remarks on Jan. 2.

The EEOC didn't respond to a request for comment. While its brush with the Federal Labor Relations Authority was unusual, it us far from the only federal agency to renegotiate its telework arrangements with union intervention.

In December, the National Archives and Records Administration reached an agreement with its union allowing up to five telework days per week for all employees, which are to be granted “based on legitimate business needs,” according to the AFGE.

The month prior, the National Science Foundation’s new four-year collective bargaining agreement allowed employees to telework up to eight days per pay period and expanded the number of teleworkers allowed from eight to 150.

Negotiations are ongoing at other federal agencies, including at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, where AFGE Local 421 found that roughly half of the 1,000 workers in its bargaining unit would consider a job elsewhere.

Despite Biden’s pronouncement about the return of federal workers, re-entry plans have been delayed for more than a year. Experts attribute that not to challenges with real estate, but to issues with labor.

When reached for comment, a spokesperson for the Office of Personnel Management, which oversees federal guidance on telework policies, referred Bisnow to the agency’s 2022 telework report. In its introduction, OPM Director Kiran Ahuja said embracing telework was a priority in order to ensure the federal government hired and retained top talent, arguing "there is no going back."

“There has been a sea change in the American labor market,” Ahuja said. “Federal agencies must continue to embrace workplace flexibilities, such as telework, to remain competitive.” The report found that between fiscal year 2020 and 2021, the percentage of federal employees teleworking increased from 45% to 47% of all workers.

DC Fed Here!

So here’s my unsolicited two cents here.

The Mayors Office is trying to coordinate with Federal Agencies to eliminate/cut back on telework in hopes that commuting employees would revitalize local businesses in DC and help stabilize the economy.

In other words, help with local businesses, eateries transportation and more and return it to pre-Covid Times.

Additionally, the official space that’s not being used due to teleworking contractors and employees which belongs to the agencies-they want to convert to affordable housing and other services.

Again that’s not practical because the infrastructure of office buildings wasn’t made for affordable housing and even if it was-I’m 95% sure a rich real estate company will buy the building and cut a shady deal with the Mayors office and charge whatever outrageous price they want cause they can. And nothing changes…

So here’s where I draw the line because it’s all a bunch of bullshit.

#1. When the economy is bad, inflation is high and wages are stagnant, people spend less money.

So enforcing ppl back to the office in hopes that they’ll spend EVEN MORE on gas, commute and $12 lunches to sustain the economy is a falsehood.

#2. If that’s the route they wanted to go which was to end telework, then a conversation has to be had about raising the cost of wages for DC and Federal Employees to help with spending-which again, isn’t happening…

#3. Covid has forever changed the way we work now. Similar to how 9/11 changed the world around us. Businesses need to be creative to sustain themselves and make money and forcing the citizens who work here to bite the bullet isn’t it.

Simply put, you either adapt or die.

TL/DR

DC Mayors Office is bullshit and the reasons why. Salute to these Union’s for having their employees backs.

We just had a town hall in my directorate where they said that 'changes might be coming' to bring us in three days a week and that remote position waivers are paused.

And many of the questions in the chat were, has the mayor's office released a safety plan for the metro? (crickets). What is [agency] doing to ensure that people don't leave for higher pay and remote work in the private sector (crickets). When will there be solid policy? (crickets)

Holy shit, get it together. I myself had a job interview elsewhere today. I wish the fed gov would see the writing on the wall. If you don't support your employees.... why should we support you?

Commoditization of downtown DC is not a reason to force thousands of people back to an office for no personal benefit to the employee or to the organization.

Mayor Bowser needs to find ways to revitalize downtown for the realities of today vs. forcing people back to an antiquated system.

The thing that gets me with the social discourse around return to office, is that upper level executive types have always been allowed to work from wherever they want pretty much as much as they want.

It’s only us peons having that freedom when it’s suddenly an organizational problem.

This really is a stupid move on the Fed government's part.

Literally one of the appeals of fed government work is their flexible telework policy. Even with this policy, they're suffering a brain drain.

Get rid of this policy and the brain drain will happen even faster.

Part III: FD Stonewater Managing Director Norman Dong, who oversaw the federal government's office portfolio for the General Services Administration between 2014 and 2017, said that labor was a huge component of discussions about real estate needs during that time.

He said that guidance issued by OMB in 2021 delegating the task of return-to-office plans to agency heads and other top officials has driven much of the internal discussions over re-entry since.

“Agencies are competing for talent in terms of recruiting and retaining employees. Telework is something that factors into the mix," Dong said. “I come back to the written guidance. That is like gospel to people."

But despite broad pronouncements that telework is here to stay, commercial office owners have been frustrated by re-entey plans that are piecemeal and lack a clear overall direction from the top, said Darien Leblanc, an executive vice chairman at Cushman & Wakefield.

“If the federal government is going to embrace broad-scale remote work across most federal agencies indefinitely, then announcing that publicly will be helpful, because then the private sector can begin to extrapolate what that could mean,” Leblanc said. “The deafening silence right now in terms of what it consists of means that people can’t plan.”

D.C. leaders say the effects of federal workers’ slow return to downtown buildings are clear: Retail vacancies remain high in the office-heavy downtown and East End, where workers once bought lunch, visited dry cleaners and shopped regularly. The Washington-area Metro system is also missing hundreds of thousands of riders.

But despite that strain, one area where union leaders and policy setters in the federal government agree is that the federal government’s footprint will shrink, a policy that Transwestern Managing Director Lucy Kitchin described at a Bisnow event last year as one of “reduction, reduction, reduction." That’s likely to continue as the federal government competes with the private sector for labor.

More than a quarter of federal workers are set to retire by 2027, forcing the feds to incorporate incentives like teleworking to promote recruitment and retention, according to an analysis by JLL shared with Bisnow. Meanwhile, the Government Accountability Office is preparing a Federal Building Utilization Study that will provide some answers on just how many workers are returning to the office when it is published in the coming months, Dong said.

But Shonfield said the cat is already out of the bag — EEOC employees have told her they’ve had an easier time doing much of their work handling workplace disputes remotely. The union is continuing to negotiate a more permanent telework policy, and she said she’s advocating for more flexibility going forward.

Agencies have gotten themselves into a bind. Large recruitment efforts have been centered on offering workplace flexibilities. Locality pay determinations have been favorably offered for telework/remote staff to get locality pay for the official duty station of their employer, but they work in an alternative work site. It is only a matter of time, before the goose is cooked and things start to be audited. People who moved to Wyoming and fly into the city a few times each month, will get their Wyoming locality pay (+16.2% adjustment), and that is a big negative delta from the District of Columbia's locality pay (+32.49 adjustment). It is going to be sad, comical, and scary for some.

We are only in the beginning stages of this work place flexibility audit and/or fall-out.

Part IV: “There’s a comfort issue for individuals, particularly those who were subjected to harassment, that they’re not having to come sit in a conference room with the folks that they find to be intimidating," Shonfield said. “We would like recognition at EEOC that this is a post-Covid world, that other agencies are expanding their pre-Covid telework policies and having remote policies."

John Falcicchio, D.C.’s deputy mayor for planning and economic development, said he would like to see the Biden administration issue a clear, overarching policy on how many days it wants to see federal workers in the office.

“We think it's best that there is a centralized policy that comes from the White House,” Falcicchio said. “It should be a clear concise enterprisewide directive for how folks come back to the office.” He also said the Bowser administration has been steadfast in its assertion that the District just needs some workers coming in for part of the week in order to make a difference in the health of downtown, not a unilateral return-to-office five days a week.

A majority of the District government’s 37,000 employees are working on a hybrid schedule, according to Falcicchio. He argued that if D.C. can mandate in-office time and still attract and retain talent, then the federal government should be able to do the same. “We have the same aspects of trying to compete with the private sector and also compete with other employers who offer more liberal telework policies,” Falcicchio said. “We understand that perspective, but it's something we've been able to implement.”

Contact Jacob Wallace at jacob.wallace@bisnow.com

Related Topics: GSA, Darian LeBlanc, Joe Biden, The GSA, Norman Dong, The General Services Administration, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, John Falcicchio, Return to office, Presiden Joe Biden

“Federal employees have an obligation to deliver services for the American people,” said Jaqueline Simon, national policy director for AFGE. “They do not have an obligation to patronize businesses in downtown D.C.”

This. This is the justification that really irks me. Government officials aren’t even being secretive about the fact that they just want us to be in the city to spend money. They view us as economic objects. They value us in “units of hamburgers and coffee cups purchased.” My Union fought hard, and when I finally do go back into the office once a week, I am going to work so much harder to not spend a single cent while I’m in the city, just out of spite. Bringing my own lunch. Bringing my own coffee. Buying my gas by my house instead of closer to the city.

It sucks that the economy of downtown isn’t what it once was, but it isn’t our job to sustain what was a very risky economic model of everybody being close together all of the time. Especially when beer at my house is 10% of the cost.

Have any of the remote/teleworking policies changed? From the way they are currently written it will be hard to force anyone back

People have been given an increased quality of life and better work life balance. Not to mention environmental impacts because of reduced, even small reductions, in traffic volume. Forcing people to return to work is a clear sign of profit over people.

And Amazon, Salesforce, Google etc would not dare mandate a return to the office rn either bc their workers would unionize. Labor very strong atm

Come back to DC! Just don’t wear a Canada Goose jacket that you bought with all the commuting savings you made over the last three years

[deleted]

All I ask is for most federal employees to work in the office 3 days a week, that would be much greater than what it currently is

Paywall

I think people should be careful with exclusive remote working. At some point, they'll realize it is just as effective and ship your job to India or somewhere like that

Go to work.. quit being lazy. Not that deep. You’re lazy if you are fighting to stay home all day.