The Social Safety Administration is interesting an arbitrator’s resolution requiring the company to revive telework for its staff.
A 3rd-party arbitrator dominated final month that SSA violated its collective bargaining settlement with the American Federation of Authorities Workers when it indefinitely suspended telework, and ordered the company to revive office flexibilities that had been in place earlier than mid-March 2025.
An SSA spokesperson mentioned in a press release Friday that the company has appealed the case to the Federal Labor Relations Authority, which has a majority of Trump appointees. SSA just isn’t obligated to adjust to the arbitrator’s resolution whereas the case is below FLRA enchantment.
The SSA spokesperson mentioned in a press release that the company “strongly supports the federal government’s directive to return to in-person work,” and that the workforce “is stronger when we are in person, working shoulder-to-shoulder.”
“We have realized significant improvements in our performance, providing better, faster customer service for the American people through hands-on work and hands-on management,” the spokesperson mentioned.
Early in his second time period, President Donald Trump ordered all federal staff to return to the workplace full-time. Earlier than this mandate, SSA staff represented by AFGE have been typically allowed to telework about two days every week.
Whereas the Trump administration has excluded many businesses from collective bargaining, SSA continues to acknowledge its labor contract with AFGE.
Arbitrator Sarah Miller Espinosa discovered that SSA violated its 2019 Nationwide Settlement with AFGE when the company stopped telework for a lot of of its bargaining unit members.
“The agency’s breach of its commitment, which meant thousands of employees were mandated to forego approved telework and return indefinitely to full-time in-person work, clearly went to the heart of the parties’ agreement,” Espinosa wrote.
Whereas the labor contract offers SSA administration the discretion to briefly pause telework in restricted instances, Espinosa wrote that the company’s actions “did not comport with any reasonable interpretation of ‘temporarily suspend’ based on operational needs,” and amounted to a “clear and patent breach” of its collective bargaining settlement with the union.
Espinosa additionally ordered SSA to “cease and desist from further violations” of its collective bargaining settlement with AFGE.
In March 2025, former appearing Commissioner Leland Dudek informed union officers {that a} pause on telework would solely final 90 days. Nonetheless, that suspension of telework prolonged past Dudek’s tenure and continued below the management of the present SSA commissioner, Frank Bisignano.
AFGE officers informed the arbitrator that “the agency’s open-ended, indefinite suspension of telework operates as a functional elimination of regularly scheduled telework.”
Espinosa wrote that SSA “presented no testimony or persuasive documentary evidence” to find out how lengthy this pause on telework would final, “measured either in days or months or as determined by circumstances or conditions specified by the agency.”
Through the arbitration listening to, SSA didn’t current any present or former company officers concerned within the resolution to droop telework as witnesses.
As an alternative, the company supplied testimony from Ralph Patinella, a senior advisor to the Affiliate Commissioner for the Workplace of Labor-Administration and Worker Relations, who, throughout his testimony, mentioned a “temporary” suspension of telework could possibly be “indefinite.”
Espinosa, nonetheless, rejected that declare and wrote that “by definition, temporary and indefinite are not synonymous.”
SSA informed the arbitrator that it suspended telework for workers who have been AFGE bargaining unit members “to address critical operational needs to improve the quality and timeliness of its customer service.”
“As of the beginning of 2025, the agency’s backlogs of pending claims were at or near all-time record highs, customers were waiting an unacceptable length of time to receive disability benefit decisions, and field offices were struggling to handle long lines, early office closures, and delays for in-office appointments based on a lack of available on-site employees due to telework,” the company informed the arbitrator.
A latest report from the Authorities Accountability Workplace discovered that SSA’s removing of telework alternatives has put the company liable to dropping extra workers, and a few staff informed GAO they’ve thought of leaving for jobs with extra flexibility and higher telework alternatives. SSA misplaced no less than 7,000 staff final yr.
SSA buildings aren’t assembly 60% occupancy targets — however many are shut
The Social Safety Administration, together with greater than 20 different giant federal businesses, isn’t assembly minimal occupancy requirements for its federal buildings.
Beneath the USE IT Act that former President Joe Biden signed in his last weeks in workplace, businesses should be capable to present that their buildings meet no less than a 60% utilization price, or give you plans to downsize their workplace house.
To adjust to the USE IT Act, SSA has begun rolling out a “badge in/badge out” system requiring staff to scan out and in of their workplace buildings. The system is meant to gather occupancy knowledge to quantify how a lot workplace house is being utilized by staff.
In an e mail obtained by Federal Information Community, SSA informed staff in mid-March to “start badging in and out at the beginning and end of your shift starting this afternoon.”
“We’re not used to badging out, especially since the card reader on the exterior of the building, so this will be an adjustment,” the company informed staff.
GSA printed its first governmentwide snapshot of federal constructing utilization knowledge final week. The USE IT Act requires the 24 largest businesses to share constructing utilization knowledge with GSA. The database, thus far, omits the Protection Division, one of many largest holders of actual property within the federal authorities and the U.S. Company for Worldwide Growth, which the Trump administration dismantled final yr.
The American Federation of Authorities Workers warned on Friday that the info could possibly be used to justify closing or consolidating SSA subject places of work nationwide.
Jessica LaPointe, AFGE Council 220 president, mentioned the company stays at traditionally low staffing ranges, and that the company is just trying on the variety of staff in these buildings — and never members of the general public displaying up at places of work for assist.
“SSA is already stretched thin as we face a 59-year staffing low,” LaPointe mentioned. “Determining office usage based solely on the number of staff in attendance creates a false narrative that offices are underused or underneeded. In reality, they are simply understaffed.”
SSA officers have mentioned the company has no plans to shut subject places of work, however the company is planning to chop subject workplace visits by 50%.
SSA Commissioner Frank Bisignano informed staff in a Jan. 12 all-hands assembly that “exactly zero field offices closed” final yr, and that “we’re going to always have field offices.”
“If people want to come in and see us, we’ll be there. If people want to call us, we will answer the phone. And if people want to use the web, we will be available,” Bisignano informed staff, in accordance with a transcript obtained by Federal Information Community
An SSA spokesperson mentioned in a latest assertion that “field offices are, and will always remain, our front-line, serving the more than 330 million Americans with Social Security numbers.”
Based on knowledge just lately printed by GSA, not one of the buildings utilized by the 22 largest federal businesses are assembly a 60% minimal occupancy normal. SSA buildings are additionally falling wanting these occupancy targets — however simply barely, in lots of instances.
A Federal Information Community evaluation of the info exhibits that of the 1,372 SSA buildings that submitted to GSA, a majority of them are only some staff shy of assembly the 60% occupancy goal.
For about 75% of SSA buildings, including a dozen staff or fewer would deliver them into compliance with the USE IT’s minimal occupancy necessities.
Greater than 80 SSA buildings are a single worker away from assembly the goal.
If you want to contact this reporter about latest modifications within the federal authorities, please e mail jheckman@federalnewsnetwork.com, or attain out on Sign at jheckman.29
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