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The ALJ Discussion Forum is a message board for Social Security Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) and wannabe ALJs. It's independent of the Social Security Administration. Yesterday, reports began to be published on the message board about an e-mail that ALJ union members received telling them of an agreement to allow ALJs to return to their offices on a voluntary basis beginning on May 4 with return required in June. However, ALJs will only be required to come in on days on which they have hearings. The reports on the board indicate that there's still no agreement with the larger AFGE union that includes most non-ALJ personnel at Social Security.
Very interesting. Thanks Charles for this important information.
ReplyDeleteOut of all the ssa employees, ALJs are low on my list of people that need to be back in the office. I quite like the video hearings and the decisions I have received for video (and telephonic hearings) have not been any different than what I expect would have happened if live.
ReplyDeleteField offices are an entirely different matter. They need to reopen with limited capacity.
I read the link you provided to the message board. What I do not understand is what is meant by the phrases "we are negotiating" and "in discussions" about returing to in-person hearings. What is there to be negotiated or to be discussed? How does a person devote an entire workday to "negotiating" and "discussing" a topic such as when OHO should reopen for in-person hearings? Sort of like spending hours and days discussing whether to abandon the filibuster in the Senate; a whole 5 minutes of "negotiating" and "discussing" would exhaust the topic.
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ReplyDeleteSo long as I don't have to return to my SSA office. With the highly transmissible Omicron variant surging, SSA and AFGE should stop all negotiations about reopening offices.
Please tell me no one on this blog is stupid enough to believe the post from 9:19. Can’t believe Charles would even let that through the screening since it’s completely inflammatory and obvious trolling.
ReplyDeleteI gather from this that the FOs won't reopen prior to the summer.
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ReplyDelete12:02 I don't see the 9:19 post is trolling.
What I do see as trolling are the insulting posts which sometimes appear on this blog, such as "get back to the office or find a new job" "I am disgusted with SSA employees" etc.
And it should be obvious to all , that this is not the time for SSA to reopen.
The Covid situation is now worse than ever in terms of case numbers and hospitalization numbers.
What's to negotiate? Everything. Will ALJs have to go back all day every day, or only on hearing days? What about health and safety measures, to which agency management is historically indifferent? Who will enforce claimant and rep mask/vaccine status? What other personnel (security, management, tech support) will be on site? Who will clean hearing rooms in between hearings? Hearing rooms are windowless -- will air purification filters be provided? Who will operate them?
ReplyDeleteAll huge questions. Not as simple as "just show up Tuesday".
Whatever ALJ's want to do is fine with me. It won't make much difference until I can get back in person with some of my claimants like the stroke victims who can't move one of their sides. Some need to be seen in person.
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ReplyDeleteWhy? Do your clients records completely fail to document hemiparesis or something? That would seem odd.