The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is advising Federal agencies to move forward with their plans to return to in-person work, despite current telework-related contracts with Federal employee unions.
In a Feb. 3 memo sent to agency heads, Acting OPM Director Charles Ezell argued that agencies do not need to enforce collective bargaining agreements related to telework and remote work.
“Unions can negotiate procedures for determining individual telework eligibility within authorized telework levels, and appropriate arrangements for employees whose telework eligibility is altered. However, the substantive amount of telework agencies authorize and the substantive determinations of which positions will be eligible for telework is a management right,” Ezell wrote.
“Provisions of collective bargaining agreements that conflict with management rights are unlawful and cannot be enforced,” he asserted.
Ezell directed agencies to review current collective bargaining agreement language on telework and remote work “to determine if any provisions are unenforceable for conflicting with management’s statutory rights.” He said that any provisions that require agencies to provide minimum telework levels or prevent agencies from setting maximum telework levels “are likely unlawful.”
The memo comes less than two weeks after President Donald Trump signed an executive order ending remote work for Federal employees and ordering them to return to the office “on a full-time basis.”
OPM issued a separate memo on Jan. 22 that says agencies should plan to meet a 30-day deadline to be in full compliance with President Trump’s return-to-office executive order.
Additionally, President Trump signed a memo on Jan. 31 that says that any new contract with Federal unions signed “in the final days of the prior administration’s tenure” is null and void.
The memo specifically calls out the Department of Treasury’s collective bargaining agreement that it negotiated on Jan. 17 “that generally prohibits the agency from returning remote employees to their offices.”
The recent memos drew opposition from the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) – the largest Federal employee union – which issued a statement on Monday saying that the president “doesn’t have the authority to do away with approved contracts.”
“Federal employees should know that approved union contracts are enforceable by law, and the president does not have the authority to make unilateral changes to those agreements,” said AFGE President Everett Kelley. “AFGE members will not be intimidated. If our contracts are violated, we will aggressively defend them.”
