OPM memo claims some agency telework policies are ‘unlawful’
The Office of Personnel Management is escalating its fight against agency staffers’ telework and remote work practices, with acting Director Charles Ezell writing in a memo Monday that eligibility determinations are a “management right” regardless of preexisting agreements.
In the memo, Ezell specifically targets collective bargaining agreements that have locked in place telework or remote work practices. The acting director acknowledges government unions’ rights to negotiate telework eligibility “within authorized” levels, but adds that “the substantive amount of telework agencies authorize and the substantive determinations of which positions will be eligible for telework is a management right.”
“Provisions of collective bargaining agreements that conflict with management rights are unlawful and cannot be enforced,” the memo states.
Ezell directs agencies to review current language on telework and remote work “to determine if any provisions are unenforceable for conflicting with management’s statutory rights,” citing section 7106 of the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations statute.
Measures within CBAs that mandate minimum telework levels at agencies or ban the setting of maximum telework levels “are likely unlawful,” according to the memo.
The memo is the latest step in OPM’s attempted dismantling of federal government telework and remote work policies, many of which were in place prior to COVID-19 and enabled agency work to continue unabated when the pandemic hit.
The Trump administration’s onslaught of policies aimed at slashing the federal workforce also includes the release of a “deferred resignation offer,” which has an acceptance deadline of Thursday. Agency leaders’ return-to-office plans, meanwhile, are due to OPM and the Office of Management and Budget by Friday.
Russell Vought, the nominee to lead OMB, foreshadowed the Trump administration’s interest in challenging agencies’ collective bargaining agreements during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee last month.
“We’re going to take a look at the collective bargaining agreements,” he said. “Obviously we’re aware of the extent to which the Biden administration is locking in or attempting to bind the Trump administration with the CBAs that last an extended period of time. I don’t have anything to announce, other than to agree with [Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa] that it’s a concerning phenomenon, and one that we are looking at very closely.”
