The Biden administration is asking agencies to submit by July 19 finalized plans for returning federal workers to their offices. ...
“Agencies will need to have finalized their plans for both reentry and post-reentry procedures and policies by July 19,” said a task force email to agencies on Tuesday, sent in collaboration with the Office of Management and Budget, the Office of Personnel Management and the General Services Administration. “Agencies may submit earlier at their discretion.”
The plans should build off the draft versions that need to be submitted to OMB by June 18 and must include phased reentry schedules and other safety measures informed by current guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the task force, the Occupational Safety and Hazards Administration and any other relevant guidance, the email said. ...
The task force also said agencies must “satisfy applicable collective-bargaining obligations and provide ample notice to any employees who will be returning to the physical workplace, who will have altered work schedules, or who will otherwise have altered work circumstances, consistent with the agency’s intended post-reentry work environment.” ...
Axios reported on Tuesday that White House offices will bring back all employees in person between July 6 and July 23, with some exceptions. ...
26 comments:
There should be exceptions for employees age 60+ (would be most endangered by potential fall surges due to vaccine resistant COVID variants). These employees should be allowed continued 100% telework.
Other employees should only have to come in to the office 1 or 2 days per week, and allowed to telework on the other days.
Saul will restart overtime when the buildings reopen.
To make it appear that bringing employees back to the office helped reduce the backlogs.
It to 3"17 It is no longer true that people over 60 are at particular risk if they are fully vaccinated, The CDC has not said that the risk is such that they are required to take additional precautions. At this point, if you are vaccinated, there is apparently very low risk to you of getting seriously ill, certainly no more than exists every day of your life.
By all means, unless there is some specific medical reason why they cannot be vaccinated, establish a vaccine mandate fro anyone entering a Social Security Office or Hearing Office for any purpose, including employees. And, if someone cannot show that, they are excluded from the premises.
It seems that those who always wanted increased telework are seizing on this as an opportunity to maintain/increase telework. That is an entirely separate issue and COVID should not be used as an excuse.
The SSA should get back to doing its business and interacting with the public, as have nearly all other businesses.
@7:57 I have a secret to share with you:
SSA has never stopped "doing its business and interacting with the public" so there is nothing to "go back to."
Ever notice that CMS doesn't have field offices? The vast majority of Medicare beneficiaries never have in-person contact with a CMS employee. Soon enough, the same will be true for Social Security beneficiaries and SSI recipients. Field offices are a massive waste of tax payer dollars. The savings on rent/sale of government owned space once the FOs close for good will be significant.
@7:57 am COVID is not an excuse. It's part of the modern reality. Telework is needed to avoid the spread and contraction of COVID.
7:57 SSA employees work under unique circumstances.
1.. Most SSA jobs can be done just as well from home, unlike grocery store workers for example, who have to be there.
2. The nature of SSA jobs puts us at higher risk from COVID19 and variants of the virus. Interviews, crowded waiting rooms and elevators, thousands of employees in crowded TSC and PC.
3. The United States Government should be a model employer and set the example by offering telework. This keeps the general public safer as well as SSA workers. Also better for the environment and eases traffic congestion.
We can't just pretend COVID19 didn't happen and why go back to the 1980's with crowded offices and long commutes. There are still thousands of new COVID cases and hundreds of deaths every day in the USA.
@5:04 pm All good points. Yet, SSA decided to emphasize cubicle farms as an office model and has not indicated a willingness to undo such a poor choice. Since SSA continues to ignore executive orders, I doubt their reentry plan will be a good one.
7:14 I don't trust SSA management for the reopening plan. I am hoping that AFGE will have a say in any reopening plan.
If Trump had won then Saul would probably revert to his union busting ways with authoritarian, punitive dictates on telework.
I believe Biden is constrained by the Biden Administration. He has likely been told to work with AFGE, not against them. He may have even been warned about his past behavior, when the transition took place in January.
My source tells me PC7 will reopen in September, for better or for worse.
I suppose this could be subject to change if there is another Coronavirus surge.
The reopening plan should be based upon what is the best for the employees of SSA and the public that is serves. But, I doubt that will happen given SSA's history of doing things poorly.
@4:35
I don't suppose PC7 being closed is why fee payments fell off a cliff approximately a year ago?
9:23 PC7 started cutting back overtime a year ago. The cutbacks continued in 2021 and now overtime is only about 10% of what it was.
I have worked in PC7 for 41 years. Except for a brief period of about a year in the 1980's, we have never been able to keep up with the workloads without heavy overtime.
During my 41 years at PC7, every time overtime has been eliminated, the backlogs have increased, until management was forced to bring OT back. Due to the complexity of the disability workload and the volume of work.
It will take PC7 months to dig out of this hole, and it will only happen if overtime if restored to pre-pandemic levels, whether the building is closed or not. (I suspect Saul cut overtime while employees are teleworking, in order to make it look like telework is not effective)
I don't like the rumor I'm hearing about a September reopening for SSA. This would be just in time to put SSA workers in the front lines for a potential fall surge of coronavirus, possibly caused by vaccine resistant variants.
I just read today that scientists don't know for sure if there could be such a surge.
Hey, for those of you who don't go back to work at SSA, I hear there are plenty of Surveillance System Monitor jobs out there.
@2:53 The vaccination rate is slowing down dramatically. That will increase the risk of further COVID19 variants emerging. Too soon to reopen just yet. Much too soon. We can be back in a shut down mode by January if we don't get herd immunity by the fall.
@2:53 Of course they don't know for sure. They don't know anything for sure. Kind of like "lockdowns will work" Turns out that wasn't true at all.
Illinois is Stage 5 this week, everything open and normal with restrictions only in congregate living and public transportation.
Sabbatical over.
Working from home is not a "sabbatical." Enough with the anti-employee nonsense. Work is work regardless of the setting.
Well if work is work then get back in the office
What a nonsensical reply. Nearly all SSA work is portable. If work is work it shouldn't matter to you, an outsider, where it is performed.
CMS doesn't have field offices. SSA doesn't need them either. Offices in general are dinosaurs. Remote work is the future. Time to get with it.
The 8:48 and 8:18 poster seems to me to be a troll.
Perhaps these types of negative comments directed towards SSA workers should not even be posted as comments, just read and deleted.
Troll: to antagonize (others) online by deliberately posting inflammatory, irrelevant, or offensive comments or other disruptive content
Agreed. Guy is clearly a troll.
Not a troll a former CR that doesnt understand why people dont want to go back to work. Dont like the job dont do it. If not, go back, the world is opening up with limited or no restriction, why on Earth would SSA be exempt? Who believes SSA employess are not engaging in regular life activities as things open up? Sorry, I dont buy that for one single minute.
So you are a retired SSA employee out of step with technology. Were you still working as a CS (agency hasn't used the acronym CR in more than five years) during the pandemic you would realize that you can conduct your job perfectly fine from home. The idea that we must provide face-to-face contact with the public is ludicrous. SSA is one of the few federal agencies that has offices open to the public.
20 years from now almost all "office work" in both the public and private sectors will be conducted from home. It will save corporations, government agencies, and taxpayers mucho dinero and will also dramatically reduce our carbon footprint.
Carbon foot print down? I guess those servers dont run on electricity? Not heating and cooling a home? That is a quite hilarious reach that is very entertaining. Thanks for the laugh!
30 years ago they told us we would never use paper and we would all work remotely.
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