From Fedweek:
New workplace planning guidance from the Biden Administration stresses in several places that agencies must “satisfy any applicable collective bargaining obligations, and provide ample notice to any affected employees,” before making changes.
The joint OMB-OPM-GSA memo notes President Biden’s executive order stating that it is the policy of the government to “encourage union organizing and collective bargaining.” It does not specify issues over which agencies must bargain nor what form bargaining should take; formal negotiations for example might be drawn out over weeks.
“Labor relations obligations may be addressed issue by issue for aspects of the agency’s overall plan for reentry and post-reentry. For example, an early issue to surface to employee representatives may be the agency’s plan for ample notice to employees. Also, for example, an agency may decide to engage with employee representatives on aspects of its post-reentry personnel policies separate from labor relations engagement on the updating of the agency’s COVID-19 workplace safety plan,” it says.
After that, employees who will be returning to the physical workplace or who will have altered work schedules should be given advance notice; the length can “vary based on the effect of the change on particular employees” but normally would be at least 30 days. …
It would help if there were some basic trust between labor and management at Social Security but there isn’t. It would also help if the union would not be trying to keep employees working completely from home forever regardless of what that does to public service but I expect that's what they'll be asking for. For that matter, does Social Security have to negotiate with the union over going back to the telework status quo ante Covid-19? That's not clear to me. In any case, I think a return to something like the telework status quo ante Andrew Saul to be more likely.
31 comments:
This is not a "they're the same" situation. The right for ALJs to telework on non-hearing days was collectively bargained and thus contractually guaranteed, but SSA kept inventing imaginary obstacles to deny that right anyway. SSA lost grievance after grievance on those ALJ telework denials.
The current union exec board did goof by firing the grievance committee that won all those grievances, as soon as the new board took office, but the new grievance chairs are getting wins, too, because management is so inept in their low grade villainy.
Start the pool.
I would argue that at as whole SSA has provided better public service with employees teleworking, rather than forcing employees back into offices.
I work in a SSA payment center, and with telework there has been less leave usage, and higher employee morale. . Employees are better rested and happier without facing long dangerous and congested commutes. Also less illness among employees as we no longer pick up germs in the office. (Who knows if there will be a fall surge in COVID19 vaccine resistant variants).
We have adapted well to working at home and now have the infrastructure set up to continue to do so. More cases are being worked without the obstacles and distractions of going to the office, and with less leave being taken.
Calling SSA employees back to the office to do the same work they can accomplish at home, would be needless and counter productive.
@10:31
Fantasyland must be nice. The only component of SSA that's not a complete dumpster fire is OHO and that's only because they barely have enough work to do. The AC's, aka "The Denial Factory", only metric is how quickly they can deny cases so gotta give them credit for meeting those "goals".
Respectfully,
Every Rep with cases pending at initial, recon, OHO, AC...or awaiting fee payment on any case
@ 9:22
You state, "The right for ALJs to telework on non-hearing days was collectively bargained and thus contractually guaranteed[.]" Where in the contract can we find this?
I’m personally happier and more productive at home but if I have to go back so be it. It won’t matter, we have 4 people in my office. We don’t have enough people to do the work at home or in the FO.
anon@10:42am,
Exactly right. 10:31's argument could be interpreted as "we were totally unable to accomplish anything timely or worthwhile when we were working in the office, so still not accomplish anything timely or worthwhile while working at home is perfectly acceptable".
I've got non-fee items I referred that have been pending over 18 months and counting in the PSC/OCO backlogs that STILL haven't been done. And, management won't do manager to manager contacts because they aren't considered "priority items" (apparently, defined as things that won't generate bad PR by showing up on a newscast). Well, I guess the only people they are priority items to are the claimants whose lives the agency is screwing over, but to agency personnel that apparently isn't something they care about in designating their "priority" workloads.
11:34 OCO backlogs have grown because overtime was almost completely eliminated in 2021. PC7 overtime for Claims Specialists and disability examiners was suddenly cut to zero this year, after many years of having overtime available every Saturday ( and some during the week too).
Two days ago Saturday 06/12 PC7 overtime was restored for CS and DE after months of no OT. This should help with the workflow in PC7.
But even if overtime is continued, it will take months to dig out of the backlogs created by the cuts in overtime.
Pre-Saul telework made the most sense at OHO. 2 days per week was more than adequate for support staff.
I could even see 4 days per week now in light of some of the advancements we've made with infrastructure over the last ~16 months.
There's precedent for it and it already worked. TPTB at OHO just went along with Saul, when there was no reason for OHO to receive the same punitive cuts as other components, and I'm not sure they deserved it either, but I don't work there so I don't know.
11:34: SSA must limit the number of manager to manager cases.
As the old adage in PC7 goes:
If every case is a priority, then no case is a priority.
True manager to manager cases (Terminal illness, dire need) are processed high priority.
Is there anyway other than mail to submit original copies of important documents? What makes SSA buildings different from court rooms and post offices and other federal /state buildings? Why not just have a drop off and pick up date with no personal contact? This is baffling to me as I have to send such items in for a date correction. It just feels as if there will be issues.
I cant help imagining SSA employees battling lions and tigers and bears while snowshoing uphill, both ways, to and from work on these long and dangerous commutes. Driving through Mad Max roving gangs in a post apocalyptic dystopia like one of the latest offerings on a streaming service. It is my new favorite excuse they are using.
The thing that drives me crazy about this blog is that everyone here who posts assumes that SSA exists solely to process disability claims. You constantly complain about fee processing or mailed documents, but in the spectrum of things that actually matter to the American public that is low hanging fruit. Millions of monthly payments, thousands of retirement claims, phone calls, address changes, immediate payments, dire need requests, SSN replacement, earnings record maintenance, training, Medicare and RRB assistance, SSI critical workloads etc are all more important than answering a phone call from a firm who needs help locating their own clients or finding a fee. There are literally people starving that SSA is trying to pay and taking on the most dire work is crucial.
SSA has managed to handle millions of individual workloads that also matter and to complain things aren’t getting done is really saying “the only things that matter to me is not happening quickly enough.” Get over it. If SSA stopped functioning to the degree of complains on here then there would be a much bigger more problematic ripple through society. I think SSA has done a decent job for a dramatic operational shift under a top down bureaucracy and the case study some of my grad students have done on organizational change during the pandemic shows that although SSA isn’t perfect it’s much better than the picture painted here.
Not every non hearing day, but the 2013 contract provides for some telework, and that's the one that's supposed to be operative at the moment.
2:54 One of my SSA coworkers in my module was killed on the roads in a traffic accident, he was commuting to work at PC7 when the accident occurred.
Another SSA worker in the main complex was hit by a vehicle and killed in the SSA parking lot a couple of years ago. He was walking towards the building to begin his workday.
The danger of commuting to work every day real. Much safer at home.
3:47 I guess then a SSA employee to be safe would never drive to a store, go see friends a movie or any other activity.
While I am sorry for the losses, but I doubt most sincerely those numbers are indicative of the agency on the whole.
@ 2:54 "I cant help imagining SSA employees battling lions and tigers and bears while snowshoing uphill, both ways, to and from work on these long and dangerous commutes. Driving through Mad Max roving gangs in a post apocalyptic dystopia like one of the latest offerings on a streaming service. It is my new favorite excuse they are using."
Funny but also very insensitive. Forget the danger of commuting. Let's talk about costs. Saves money on gas, wear and tear on the car, less traffic, less need for office space, etc. Ignoring that working from home has advantages is nonsense.
You seem to have the Better Call Saul attitude pre-pandemic. I used to work at the office only so you must also. Uh no, times have changed Saul.
This productivity is better with remote work is complete malarkey.
Telecommuting workers work longer not more productive.
Sure you get more out of them at home. I am ready to go back to the office and be less productive, I mean work less hours.
There seems to be an all or nothing fight going on over telework. It doesn't have to be that way. Can we all agree to the following:
1. The field offices need to be open for those tasks that can not be completed online (sorry not mailing in my original documents to SSA!) and for those individuals who do not/can not use the internet. Social security could control how many individuals are in the space by having the offices available by appointment only.
2. There needs to be live hearings for individuals who want to appear live in front of a judge. As a rep, we have done 75% of my cases by phone, but there are 25% for a variety of reasons that need to be live, and that should be possible.
3. Telework should be allowed for those tasks where interaction with the public face to face is not required.
So maybe there is 3 days a week telework, maybe there are individuals are home all the time, and maybe some people are in the office everyday.
SSA management should tread very carefully on the telework issue. I read last week that 30% of professionals said they would quit before returning to the office. Over the last 15 months, many SSA workers have become retirement eligible.
One part of the solution would be to allow older SSA employees age 60+ continued 100% telework. This age group would be the most likely to retire rather than to return to the office.
Also age 60+ is the most vulnerable to any possible Covid variant resurgence in the fall. Even fully vaccinated employees could be in danger from vaccine resistant strains of the virus. Safer at home working.
Also even the youngest SSA employees should get at least two days per week telework..This will help with retention and recruiting. Also good for the environment and keeps the roads from being clogged, and cuts taxpayer costs for office upkeep.
It is SSA leadership not the general employees creating dumpster fires. They have one component working in like 20 different states. Each pays differently for records, exams, etc. each has a different process and they expect each to be followed as such. Then they send DCPS exclusions to be done at sites as hybrid claims, make everyone stop for training and then it’s so terrible an idea from the uppers that never do the actual work- they cease the idea weeks later… countless hours wasted to then pull it back. We have no Mgmt because leaders force support staff to be schedule A but our schedule A can’t come in because high risk but when there is overtime in office they can come in because their risk is lower during over time - more money means less spread of virus.. right. So during this pandemic we hired support staff to help in office that they knew going in could not come in the office. Then we have caseloads of generally one type without the benefit of variations that do make it flow more smoothly. Thousands of pages … people who constantly fail to list all their sources… cases aged from the start. The employees are burning up in the dumpster fire not caused by telework but by years of unearned promotions based on anything other than proof of excellence and proficiency. It’s a land of yes men/women… leading their staff up a river of —- and then blaming them for the very sh- show they caused. If you all could see the raging piles of disaster that is leadership decision making in processing departments- heck even in policy and how they use roles for stepping stones vs again- knowledge and excellence… explain to me why a policy leader is a role used to process someone through to a higher level job when it’s role is so crucial to regions?! If you all could see just how terrible leaders are from project directors up to the central office… and how it took 1 1/2 years to get a working computer… or headset… you would gtfo this telework banter and see the real issue. Imagine being a hard working employee squished between an angry public and useless “leaders” with terrible sense of priority and guidance… lack of consistency and anticipation. This is the real issue. Not telework
@9:13 pm Even if 30% of folks quit due to having to return to the office, they would just be replaced as quick as they retired. And, such an assertion is meritless since 30% of folks would not quit their jobs at SSA just because they had to return to the office. Having said that, telework should be here to stay. It's the reality of a modern work place.
@9:13pm We haven't even replaced the ones that retired during COVID. Where, oh where is this magic wave of hiring going to come from?
Look, offices need to at least partially re-open. If they want to throttle or totally eliminate walk-ins, I think it's poor customer service but it's at least preferable to the current alternative. At a base level, SSA (at least the ODO segment) is in the customer service business, and a lack of face to face contact, no matter what people try to say about telework, is a deficiency in customer service.
The phone traffic has made it so that it's nearly impossible to keep up with workloads, as we're constantly having to jump on and answer calls to keep the queue down. Our appointment calendar has exploded to further out than I've ever seen since I started working at SSA. I could throw shade at the TSCs and PC (lord knows they're coming up short in areas), but the simple truth is the FOs are not doing a good job either right now.
@10:31 PM no vacancies will not be filled as fast they retire. Hiring is a slow process and who knows what the training process will look like
10:31 SSA can replace a retiring or quitting worker but it takes years for a new employee to become proficient for many SSA jobs. POMS is extremely complex, just the workers compensation and attorney fee chapters of POMS by themselves are a handful.
If 30% left at once, it would be devastating for the agency. The positions in the field offices from CSR up to CTE are highly technical and it takes year to have a proficient understanding of the voluminous POMS and all of the processes involved with daily tasks.
Furthermore, thanks to Veterans' Preference, I can guarantee you that the new hires won't be nearly as qualified as the retirees they are replacing. Sorry to say, most vets don't want to work for SSA, so we aren't exactly getting the best and brightest. However, due to the aforementioned 10 point preference, it is basically impossible to hire a civilian without a military background. This has been going on for around a decade and is unsustainable longterm. The Federal hiring process needs to be reformed. Namely, veteran preference should be reduced down to around 3 points.
It seems many cooperate jobs will be returning to the office. They didnt trust you in the office, they dont trust you at home either. It is a control thing. After all they own you for 8 hours a day. You are rented, like a sex worker.
I know you dont want to admit it, but you are. And you will go and do what they tell you if you want to get paid.
I would be happy to keep payment center people happy and contented in their homes if only I could contact them there to see what the status of a particular case was.
With zero ability to contact Payment Center personnel (MidAtlantic is by fare the worst with even District Office staff admitting they can't get in tough with them either) and only the intermittently contactable Baltimore Payment Center through the Rep Call number, it is frustrating beyond belief. Of course, this was as much a problem pre-covid as now.
Why is there not at least a Rep Call Number for each of the Payment Centers?
Why is there no access to payment information online to registered reps in the same way we can access the files generally?
And why is the Court Case payment Staff totally incommunicado?
If I know what is going on, ir anything is going on, then I can explain this to my client and we can deal. Calling a payment center repeatedly and leaving messages that never get returned is no way to show customer service, whether we are being ignored from home or from the office.
8:04 It seems to be a boomer power play by supervisors. Older executives are old school and can't accept telework no matter how effective it is.
Younger generations know that telework works well and many will only take jobs which offer this option, whether in private industry or government.
The telework debate is misleading. The bottom line is too many people at SSA are not as productive as they should be. ALJ's have way less hearings since the pandemic started and seem to be doing less work - why is that? Laziness? Yet, if someone brings up abolishing the ALJ program ALJ's respond with the very tiring ALJ independence is critical theme. And, field offices and payment centers are more backlogged now.
Is it solely due to the pandemic and the lack of OT? And what exactly are managers at field offices and hearing offices doing during telework? Are they actually supervising anyone? Very doubtful. If folks wish to have a debate about what ails SSA and the pros and cons of SSA, folks should be objective and honest about what is going on there.
@807 PM
Supervisors are supervising people. There are many goals that need to be met each month (RSI timeliness, percentage or phone calls answered, redets, etc etc etc). These don't just get met without supervision to direct resources towards specific goals. They also are opening hundreds of pieces of mail daily, scanning the mail, assigning it to the person that is to work it and returning any documents to the public. Plus, since offices are for the most part closed, some are helping answer the very high volume is phone calls, helping with public relations issues, doing Congressionals, etc. One may complain about the service that SSA is turning out during the pandemic but it's not because of a lack of effort of management.
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