Remote-work military spouses at agencies spared from Trump’s return-to-office order

Spouses of active-duty U.S. military members employed by federal agencies with remote-work agreements will be exempt from the Trump administration’s return-to-work policy, the Office of Personnel Management said in a memo released Wednesday. 

The guidance from OPM to create a remote-work carve-out for agency-employed spouses of U.S. Armed Forces members comes after weeks of uncertainty and outcry from military families in the aftermath of President Donald Trump’s day-one executive order calling federal workers back to the office.

A bipartisan House bill introduced last week by Reps. Eugene Vindman, D-Va., and Rob Wittman, R-Va., called for a military spouse exception to Trump’s order, preserving existing federal government telework and remote-work agreements.

“Today, I am celebrating a win for military families after the Administration heeded our bipartisan call to exempt military spouses from the return to in-person work order,” Vindman said in a statement. “Our bipartisan Support Military Families Act directly led to this action that treats the spouses who sacrifice so much for our nation with dignity and respect and supports the readiness of our military.” 

The OPM carve-out does not mention anything about telework, but an aide to Vindman told FedScoop that the plan is to move forward with the bill and secure more co-sponsors, with the goal of codifying the exemption for both remote work and telework.

The aide added that the legislation has generated “a lot” of support from Republicans and Democrats “because people know it is the common sense, correct thing to do.” The next step for the bill will be a House Oversight Committee hearing and markup, and then either a floor vote or consideration under reconciliation, the aide said.

In an interview last week with FedScoop, a military spouse and federal worker in Vindman’s district said that the daily 200-mile trek to her agency’s Washington, D.C., headquarters would not be doable for her family. 

“We have a mortgage to pay. We have bills coming every month, and it’s dependent on two incomes,” she said. “So we should not have to be penalized because the government and the military said to my husband, ‘you have to move.’”   

The OPM memo says that military spouses can continue in their current remote-work arrangements “regardless of whether they were appointed under the Military Spouse Employment Act authorities.” The guidance is also applicable to agency workers married to U.S. Foreign Service members on assignments abroad.

Wittman said in a statement that he was proud to help “spotlight this critical issue” after more than a week of “bipartisan advocacy.”

“These individuals make tremendous sacrifices in support of our active-duty service members, often facing frequent relocations that make maintaining an in-person job challenging,” he said. “Standing by our military families isn’t just the right thing to do — it’s patriotic and simply common sense. I thank the administration for their decision to amend this executive order.”

This story was updated with comments from a Vindman aide and to clarify that the OPM memo applies to remote work but not telework.