From Government Executive:
Members of the nation’s largest federal employee union on Wednesday rallied outside of the headquarters of the Social Security Administration near Baltimore, demanding more funding and staffing for the agency, as well as reform of agency leadership and workforce policies. ...
Union officials on Wednesday described an agency in a vicious cycle, where insufficient funding amid growing workloads has led managers to micromanage overworked and underpaid employees, burning them out until they quit, further increasing the output expectations on the dwindling workforce that remains. This is exacerbated, they said, by a refusal to act to modernize the agency’s workflows or provide workplace flexibilities that have become the norm not just in the private sector, but elsewhere in the federal government. ...
According to a survey of union members commissioned by AFGE Council 220, 43% of respondents reported that they were planning to leave the agency within the next 12 months, including 26% of respondents who said they were strongly considering it. And 76% of respondents said that the volume of their workload is an impairment to their ability to perform their duties. ...
This agency is in serious trouble. The sad part about is that it’s the public that will suffer the most.
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ReplyDeleteThe protesters have a valid argument , about the draconian telework policies. These were imposed after a ruling by the right wing Federal Service Impasses Panel during the Trump era.
This gave the SSA commissioner and deputy commissioners the right to determine telework eligibility without negotiation with the union. SSA Commissioner Saul and Deputy Commissioner Grace Kim then abused their power, by abruptly and totally terminated all Operations telework, without good reason.
To keep SSA management from abusing SSA employees in this manner in the future, this right to make unilateral decisions about telework should be taken away from management. Telework is an important part of employees lives now, and any changes should have to be negotiated with AFGE.
The union could have negotiated telework last time but didn't. Telework should be rare in field offices until work is caught up... In other words forever.
DeleteMust say union made sense for the most part which in itself is a surprise.
I doubt 43% will leave in the next year but it does show that employees are fed up with ridiculous workloads.
If even 1/2 followed through it would be catastrophic.
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ReplyDeleteHopefully these SSA employees will not leave the agency , as they indicated they might.
It would take years of training and experience, to get new employees up to speed to replace them.
I am glad that the union has finally done something! Our clients suffer because of this situation.
ReplyDeleteAlready seeing a sharp decline (and longer wait times) for IA and Recon decisions, and now, close to half of the employees could leave in the next year. The situation only gets worse.
ReplyDeleteWhat are the half-full people saying?
ReplyDelete"Telework should be rare in field offices until work is caught up... In other words forever."
This ignores the retention and recruitment issues facing SSA, as detailed in the article. If there is no telework, obviously even more SSA field office employees will quit or retire.
@12:51: And you can rest assured the decision writers and other attorneys will leave en masse if the agency ever decides they need to return to the offices despite doing their jobs from home for nearly 3 years (with no appreciable decline in productivity or quality). Particularly with the VA, which offers higher pay for comparable work, moving toward more fully remote work. This isn’t the Great Recession, when jobs were scarce, and SSA staff are well aware they have all the leverage these days.
ReplyDeleteMaybe attorneys can get better jobs. If they can, why don't they? Claims specialists, service representatives and most management can't find jobs with comparable pay, leave and other benefits. If they could, they'd be gone too. Journeyman positions at SSA are a pretty good deal. In my office of 40, no one left when telework was cut to 2 days per week.
DeleteIt is hard to retain new hires but that was the case with 100 percent telework. Lousy training, overwork and a limited pool to hire from hurt the agency, telework or not.
OMG…40 employees is your office. Where is that? I can’t imagine. We dropped from 20 to 4 in the last two years!
Delete@ 302 Population of service area is 700,000. Pre pandemic we had 300 to 350 people a day come in. During lockdown up to 800 phone calls a day. Luckily didn't have the losses you had.
Delete@2:18 - telework wasn’t cut to two days a week. It was increased to two days a week. Prior to that it was work at home by quarantine. Stop feeding the narrative. Telework in the FO doesn’t work. It breeds contempt and most employees aren’t disciplined enough to remain productive. It’s a complete and utter time suck for management.
DeleteNothing is going to improve until the Administration gets serious about repairing the agency. We need a Senate confirmed leader who is competent, has experience running a large organization, and who is interested in making radical changes at SSA. None of those things are true of our current leadership, which seems content to keep taking on water and then blaming Congress for not plugging the holes for them.
ReplyDeleteSame 3:02. And I’m in a field office in St. Louis.
ReplyDelete@2:18 PM "Maybe attorneys can get better jobs. If they can, why don't they?" Important question. Based on personal experience, I know most GS12 attorneys in the hearing offices and the AC who aren't promoted within a couple of years, want to leave. It's either leave or get stuck in a dead end job. Those who are marketable enough to get employment elsewhere with comparable or higher salaries, do leave. Those who can't, get stuck at SSA.
ReplyDeleteIn other words, marketable attorneys do not hang around drafting decisions and kowtowing to bureaucrats and ALJ/AAJs with inflated egos.