Federal Workers Union Extends Work-From-Home for 42,000 Social Security Employees

By Nick Trombola December 4, 2024 5:17 pm

Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, and the Social Security Administration logo. PHOTOS: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images; Brandon Bell/Getty Images; VALERIE MACON/AFP via Getty Images

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have a new wrinkle in their plan to force federal workers back to the office once President-elect Donald Trump takes office next year.

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), a union which represents some 42,000 workers in the Social Security Administration (SSA), has reached a deal with the agency to protect and extend the hybrid telework policy of those staffers until late 2029, Bloomberg reported. And it’s unclear what Musk and Ramaswamy, who together will helm the soon-to-be formed Department of Government Efficiency, could do to renege AFGE’s new deal, if anything.

The deal, approved by the Biden administration’s outgoing commissioner of the SSA, Martin O’Malley, preserves the agency’s current requirement of two to five days in the office depending on the type of job. (O’Malley stepped down from his position to run for chair of the Democratic National Committee.)

“This deal will secure not just telework for SSA employees, but will secure staffing levels through prevention of higher attrition, which in turn will secure the ability of the agency to serve the public,” Rich Couture, AFGE chapter president, wrote in a letter obtained by Bloomberg.

Representatives for the AFGE, SSA and President-elect Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Both Musk and Ramaswamy are adamant proponents of returning federal workers back to the office — mirroring Musk’s own company policies in recent years — even if, or indeed because, it will push many of those workers to quit.

“Requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome: If federal employees don’t want to show up, American taxpayers shouldn’t pay them for the COVID-era privilege of staying home,” the pair wrote in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal in November.

About 1.1 million of the 2.3 million federal employees in the U.S. are eligible for some form of telework, with about 228,000 working fully remote, according to a report issued by the Office of Management and Budget earlier this year.

Nick Trombola can be reached at ntrombola@commercialobserver.com.