The article was July 22, prior to the date SSA announced reopening plans. Now that the wheels are rolling towards FO reopening, hopefully this will reassure the public and there will not be as much concern about FO being closed.
I think SSA is due to reopen in early January, although this may be a little optimistic as things work slowly in the government, and that is predicated upon there not being a winter surge in COVID.
Notice that a new surge started immediately after the announcement was made? Watch the ACOSS push back that reopening date back to the spring. Reopening in the winter would be a recipe for disaster. All it will take is one active case and the entire office will need to quarantine for 10 days. No bueno.
Work from home quarantine ends on January 2. Offices will be much more reopened after that. When this article was written 3+ months ago, it was possible to make appointments at office for things like replacement cards.
I don't think it's the union. It's the administration.
@2:44pm It's poor timing to reopen in January. Medical experts are already predicting another winter surge. The reopening is going to unnecessarily jeopardize the health and well being of the public and employees. Not to mention the workers' compensation claims that will skyrocket when employees at SSA get COVID.
@346 Everyone should be vaccinated at SSA at that point. I would think it would be hard to prove where one got Covid since everyone and their brother either has it or is carrying it. I guess if someone were to never go outside to the store, church, etc they could link it to work.
It will be dangerous; while deaths are decreasing we are still losing over 1,000 people per day to covid nationwide. Spring sounds safer. People are having a hard time filing their claims online. I think that there is an opportunity for enterprising reps. to help people file. Receipts are down during a time when you would expect to see an increase.
It does seem like cherry picking regarding the perils to reopening the offices when you look at the united states from afar. It's dangerous to drive to an office, crashes happen yet teh highways are jammed. In the experiment of places like Texas and Florida essentially ignoring covid in schools and business and places are open and doing business. Getting sick is considered incidental and secondary to being back up and running. Right or wrong, it's a commonly held view. It's employee wages and availability of supplies that are impacting people's lives more than fear of covid, except in places like SSA, where it seems the workplace must be 100% safe and virus free. There are facts, interpretation of facts and perception and in the perception arena, SSA and other closed entities come off as examples of what's wrong with America. Not saying there isn't truth to the idea of it's wrong to pack a small waiting room cheek by jowl with elderly and infirm, but it comes across as hiding behind the skirts. It comes across as chickensh*t when so many others are going to work each day in person and dealing with things. I think the rest of the US thinks it's OK for a vaccinated workforce to deal with the public and that a breakthrough covid case is just something that must be dealt with. SSA is acting like somehow their risks are greater than other working stiffs and want to be treated special, when they are not. The argument you are protecting the public falls short when the public says they don't want your protection, they want your service. Perception, likely more powerful than facts given MAGA thought processes. SSA is coming off bad, even if facts kind of support the position.
I will go back to holding in-person hearings with nary a whimper, as soon as the Agency: requires all claimants, reps, VEs, and contract VHRs to also be fully vaccinated and show proof of vaccination before entering OHO space; mandates the wearing of masks at all times by all persons, including employees, while in OHO space; supplies each hearing room with a HEPA air filtration unit that filters particles in the 0.1-1.0 micron range; and schedules hearings which permits surface cleaning of hard surfaces and at least 30 minutes of ventilation between hearings. These requirements should remain mandatory for any hearing office located in a county or state where the COVID transmission level is at a moderate, substantial or high rate, as determined by the CDC.
If you’re not fully vaccinated,, or cannot or will not wear a mask, I would be happy to conduct your hearing by video or telephone. I don’t mean from my home, trying to delay a return to the office or to increase telework that some think is such a boondoggle. I will conduct your hearing from the office - I just don’t want to be required to share air space with you as a condition of my employment during a global pandemic.
One benefit to claimants of the ALJs working from home these last 20 months has been the willingness of many to pick up hearings with short notice, so that the hearings are held as scheduled rather than being postponed. I doubt that will remain the case if picking up extra hearings means an ALJ would have to come into the office to hear those cases on a scheduled telework day. You can hate on me for that last comment if you want, but I suspect it will be the truth.
Opening in winter? "Back in the day" in Chicago we came to work, on time (or else) regardless of weather. It was snowing? Leave for work earlier. So the idea that winter is somehow some sort of barrier to having a field office open is ridiculous.
Ummm...SSA employees aren't complaining about reopening the field offices during the winter due to weather issues. But you already knew that, right?
Also, it sounds like you had an employer that treated you and your colleagues like children. Risk your life coming into the office during a blizzard "Or else"? Seriously???
The most likely time for a COVID19 surge is during the winter. That is exactly what happened last winter. Just as the flu is worse in winter, so is COVID19. Only it's a lot more dangerous and deadly than the flu.
After almost two years of employees working from home, why would SSA choose the absolute worst and most dangerous time of year to reopen? Early January, when there will already be a winter surge in COVID taking place, with months to go before warm weather and COVID cases go down.
Wait until March , let employees continue to telework, before reevaluating.
9:11 Why not wait till June or July, it will be even warmer and further from the surges, but then the kids will be out of school and childcare will be a problem, so maybe in the Fall when school starts again, but then there may be a surge, so Winter, Spring Summer and Fall are all off the agenda.
How many of your friends and relatives are working from home? How many services and business that you use in your daily life are working from home? You expect those service to be available to you at your convenience, but you do not want to provide the services to others. You believe, for some reason that nobody can support, that the lives of SSA government employees are somehow more valuable that the lives of all the other workers in America that are working from offices every day, taking risks every day, the EXACT same risks that you face.
Its okay for them to get sick, but if they were the magical SSA staff, they should be protected like a national treasure.
You dont want to hear that, but it is the TRUTH, deny it so you can sleep, but you are okay with it.
11:12 Several of my friends and relatives have told me that their private industry employers (they work in telecommunications, and for an insurance company ) have granted them indefinite telework, which continues, due to COVID.
I doubt there are really accurate statistics as to how many employees are currently teleworking on a national level. I think that number is underestimated in the articles I've seen.
(Of course some jobs such as gas station attendants or grocery store workers, cannot do their jobs remotely, but these jobs are not comparable to SSA jobs )
Many lives have been saved by having SSA offices closed. The lives of the general public, and the lives of SSA workers and their families.
. So let no person get on their high horse and tell me that the moral thing to do is to open SSA offices, while this pandemic is still going raging. Just don't tell me.
SSA can also not handle remote work. They do not have the IT infrastructure or training in place. FOs are a disaster in my area of NY.
Everyone else is back to work. Stop acting like delicate snowflakes. If you are fully vaccinated Covid poses essentially the same risk as the seasonal flu. Some people posting on this blog are acting like the the death rate is 100X what it actually is. What is the acceptable death rate? Is 0.000012% not low enough for you? Because that was the death rate for fully vaccinated persons at the peak of Delta. What is the death rate among postal workers? Local post offices have been reopened for many months now.
It is a small minority of SSA workers you feel like I never want to go back. They are able to post here because they never go to the store, never go to a sporting event, never go out to eat, etc.
25 comments:
The public wonders a lot of things.
Here's the reason...packing 40 sick, disabled and elderly people in a lobby that measures 20x20 just isn't smart.
When the offices re-open in January, let's hope it's by appointment only.
The article was July 22, prior to the date SSA announced reopening plans. Now that the wheels are rolling towards FO reopening, hopefully this will reassure the public and there will not be as much concern about FO being closed.
I think SSA is due to reopen in early January, although this may be a little optimistic as things work slowly in the government, and that is predicated upon there not being a winter surge in COVID.
A.
F.
G.
E.
Notice that a new surge started immediately after the announcement was made? Watch the ACOSS push back that reopening date back to the spring. Reopening in the winter would be a recipe for disaster. All it will take is one active case and the entire office will need to quarantine for 10 days. No bueno.
simple answer: the Union
Work from home quarantine ends on January 2. Offices will be much more reopened after that.
When this article was written 3+ months ago, it was possible to make appointments at office for things like replacement cards.
I don't think it's the union. It's the administration.
@2:44pm It's poor timing to reopen in January. Medical experts are already predicting another winter surge. The reopening is going to unnecessarily jeopardize the health and well being of the public and employees. Not to mention the workers' compensation claims that will skyrocket when employees at SSA get COVID.
@346 Everyone should be vaccinated at SSA at that point. I would think it would be hard to prove where one got Covid since everyone and their brother either has it or is carrying it. I guess if someone were to never go outside to the store, church, etc they could link it to work.
It will be dangerous; while deaths are decreasing we are still losing over 1,000 people per day to covid nationwide. Spring sounds safer. People are having a hard time filing their claims online. I think that there is an opportunity for enterprising reps. to help people file. Receipts are down during a time when you would expect to see an increase.
It does seem like cherry picking regarding the perils to reopening the offices when you look at the united states from afar. It's dangerous to drive to an office, crashes happen yet teh highways are jammed. In the experiment of places like Texas and Florida essentially ignoring covid in schools and business and places are open and doing business. Getting sick is considered incidental and secondary to being back up and running. Right or wrong, it's a commonly held view. It's employee wages and availability of supplies that are impacting people's lives more than fear of covid, except in places like SSA, where it seems the workplace must be 100% safe and virus free. There are facts, interpretation of facts and perception and in the perception arena, SSA and other closed entities come off as examples of what's wrong with America. Not saying there isn't truth to the idea of it's wrong to pack a small waiting room cheek by jowl with elderly and infirm, but it comes across as hiding behind the skirts. It comes across as chickensh*t when so many others are going to work each day in person and dealing with things. I think the rest of the US thinks it's OK for a vaccinated workforce to deal with the public and that a breakthrough covid case is just something that must be dealt with. SSA is acting like somehow their risks are greater than other working stiffs and want to be treated special, when they are not. The argument you are protecting the public falls short when the public says they don't want your protection, they want your service. Perception, likely more powerful than facts given MAGA thought processes. SSA is coming off bad, even if facts kind of support the position.
Silver lining...it could extend the exhaustion date of the trust fund.
Opening in the midst of winter is so mis-guided.
I will go back to holding in-person hearings with nary a whimper, as soon as the Agency:
requires all claimants, reps, VEs, and contract VHRs to also be fully vaccinated and show proof of vaccination before entering OHO space;
mandates the wearing of masks at all times by all persons, including employees, while in OHO space;
supplies each hearing room with a HEPA air filtration unit that filters particles in the 0.1-1.0 micron range; and
schedules hearings which permits surface cleaning of hard surfaces and at least 30 minutes of ventilation between hearings.
These requirements should remain mandatory for any hearing office located in a county or state where the COVID transmission level is at a moderate, substantial or high rate, as determined by the CDC.
If you’re not fully vaccinated,, or cannot or will not wear a mask, I would be happy to conduct your hearing by video or telephone. I don’t mean from my home, trying to delay a return to the office or to increase telework that some think is such a boondoggle. I will conduct your hearing from the office - I just don’t want to be required to share air space with you as a condition of my employment during a global pandemic.
One benefit to claimants of the ALJs working from home these last 20 months has been the willingness of many to pick up hearings with short notice, so that the hearings are held as scheduled rather than being postponed. I doubt that will remain the case if picking up extra hearings means an ALJ would have to come into the office to hear those cases on a scheduled telework day. You can hate on me for that last comment if you want, but I suspect it will be the truth.
Opening in winter? "Back in the day" in Chicago we came to work, on time (or else) regardless of weather. It was snowing? Leave for work earlier. So the idea that winter is somehow some sort of barrier to having a field office open is ridiculous.
Ummm...SSA employees aren't complaining about reopening the field offices during the winter due to weather issues. But you already knew that, right?
Also, it sounds like you had an employer that treated you and your colleagues like children. Risk your life coming into the office during a blizzard "Or else"? Seriously???
This is why we can't have nice things in the USA.
The whining is so high pitched now only dogs can hear it.
Let's be logical about this. for a
The most likely time for a COVID19 surge is during the winter. That is exactly what happened last winter. Just as the flu is worse in winter, so is COVID19. Only it's a lot more dangerous and deadly than the flu.
After almost two years of employees working from home, why would SSA choose the absolute worst and most dangerous time of year to reopen? Early January, when there will already be a winter surge in COVID taking place, with months to go before warm weather and COVID cases go down.
Wait until March , let employees continue to telework, before reevaluating.
9:11 Why not wait till June or July, it will be even warmer and further from the surges, but then the kids will be out of school and childcare will be a problem, so maybe in the Fall when school starts again, but then there may be a surge, so Winter, Spring Summer and Fall are all off the agenda.
How many of your friends and relatives are working from home? How many services and business that you use in your daily life are working from home? You expect those service to be available to you at your convenience, but you do not want to provide the services to others. You believe, for some reason that nobody can support, that the lives of SSA government employees are somehow more valuable that the lives of all the other workers in America that are working from offices every day, taking risks every day, the EXACT same risks that you face.
Its okay for them to get sick, but if they were the magical SSA staff, they should be protected like a national treasure.
You dont want to hear that, but it is the TRUTH, deny it so you can sleep, but you are okay with it.
11:12 Several of my friends and relatives have told me that their private industry employers (they work in telecommunications, and for an insurance company ) have granted them indefinite telework, which continues, due to COVID.
I doubt there are really accurate statistics as to how many employees are currently teleworking on a national level. I think that number is underestimated in the articles I've seen.
(Of course some jobs such as gas station attendants or grocery store workers, cannot do their jobs remotely, but these jobs are not comparable to SSA jobs )
II:12 said it and the next post confirmed it.
"not comparable"
Its okay if they get sick because they are not as important.
I say you are not comparable to those folks.
Many lives have been saved by having SSA offices closed. The lives of the general public, and the lives of SSA workers and their families.
. So let no person get on their high horse and tell me that the moral thing to do is to open SSA offices, while this pandemic is still going raging. Just don't tell me.
SSA can also not handle remote work. They do not have the IT infrastructure or training in place. FOs are a disaster in my area of NY.
Everyone else is back to work. Stop acting like delicate snowflakes. If you are fully vaccinated Covid poses essentially the same risk as the seasonal flu. Some people posting on this blog are acting like the the death rate is 100X what it actually is. What is the acceptable death rate? Is 0.000012% not low enough for you? Because that was the death rate for fully vaccinated persons at the peak of Delta. What is the death rate among postal workers? Local post offices have been reopened for many months now.
Really... What about county court houses that are open? Talk about an entitled oho employee.
I have more respect for Qanon followers than I do for the SSA employees that post here. At least the Q honestly believe the bs they spout.
It is a small minority of SSA workers you feel like I never want to go back. They are able to post here because they never go to the store, never go to a sporting event, never go out to eat, etc.
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