From The Hill:
Martin O’Malley, the former Social Security commissioner who is now seeking to chair the Democratic National Committee, took the brunt of House GOP anger over federal telework policies – and a number of other topics – in a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing on Thursday [actually Wednesday].
Republicans primarily took aim at O’Malley’s role in overseeing a late 2024 deal between the Social Security Administration (SSA) and its workers’ union, the American Federation of Government Employees, that will lock in the current levels of telework for union employees until October 2029 – beyond the end of the Trump administration. …
O’Malley’s bid to be chair of the Democratic National Committee was also brought up multiple times by Republicans, with some bringing up topics far removed from the issue of federal telework.
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), who has become a leading anti-transgender voice in Congress, asked O’Malley to define what a woman is.
“You’re going to ask me to define what a woman is?” O’Malley asked. “I’m talking to a woman right now, a distinguished woman … I think you’re kind of denigrating the purpose of this hearing.”
26 comments:
Nancy Mace was abrasive and rude in her questioning of former Commissioner O'Malley. She was finally warned by Comer not to badger the witness.
O'Malley presented a strong case about increased productivity at SSA with telework. He also refuted the GOP claims about empty parking lots at SSA HQ, with photographic evidence of the lots filling up after he ordered employees back to work.
The entire hearing is available for viewing online.
I watched a portion of this hearing with politicians criticizing the response times at our 800##.
The time needed to take a call is indeed on a dramatic uptick because of our upgraded phone system. No one understands this system, it is complicated and often drops calls. Yet, we are stuck with it nationwide.
All in office desk phones are now disabled, just in time for all of us to get called back. Brilliant!
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) and Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) got into a heated exchange during a House hearing that resulted in Mace challenging Crockett by asking whether she wanted to “take it outside.”
Are these our Congressional leaders that are going to “save” Social Security? Expect across the board benefits cuts as early as 2033 with the repeal of GPO and WEP.
It's easy to see the angle from the Hill. Nancy Mace would probably describe herself as pro women's sports rather than anti transgender.
As a person of the public,SSA customer service is becoming strict and difficult to obtain. I'm curious if this federal behavior will be government wide and will it reflect poorly on republicans?
Republicans could care less about federal employees and attacking them scores political points. Cutting budgets will not improve customer service so expect delays on all workloads. That includes the WEP and GPO repeal battalion.
Republican playbook for Social Security. 1. Underfund agency 2. Complain about agency service problems that they caused by underfunding the agency. 3. Scare tactics about trust fund solvency 4. Rinse and repeat.
Several Republicans questioned O'Malley about why he signed a telework contract with AFGE right after the election. One told him that the agreement extending telework would not be allowed to stand, and O'Malley should watch and see what happens.
It sounded like the GOP has something up their sleeve to try to invalidate the new contract's telework extension provisions.
I cannot believe they showed a picture of the back, and least used parking lot from HQ, months before staff were even pulled back 3x/week. At the time of the picture only management was on site, and they were parked up front at many additional lots. That was a clown show.
This clown show has a four year engagement in our nations capital. Buckle up!
We should all be scared, MTG said she was going to bring federal employees to heel! Woof.
“That was a clown show.”
No, that was the GOP. Easy mistake to make these days, though.
There's employee parking at HQ? Must be nice. It's $40/day to park at my regional office.
Sigh…. Not all SSA jobs are identical. I am a long term PC employee whose job has zero face to face public contact. At the end of my telework day, I have to send my manager the SSNs of all cases assigned to me that I processed that day. Accuracy of the report can easily be verified. Further, I have to provide a report to all of the managers in my division showing a count of the types of cases processed that day—-again, verifiable. So if I were doing laundry, watching TV, or otherwise not working, what would I have to report at the end of the day? How long do you think I would be allowed to continue telework if I were not doing my assigned cases? In addition, I do the least work ( repeat LEAST) amount of work on my in-office day. Why? Because time that could have been devoted to
processing cases is diverted to getting dressed for work, preparing food, and the commute itself. Not to mention extra hours that could have been worked as credit time if I were at home. Finally, because of the need to turn in a good report every day, I frequently do not take breaks and/or lunch… this does not generally happen when working in-office. I can only speak for myself, but I am sure there are others like me who are demonstrably are not abusing telework and whose experience shows that telework is preferable in some situations. I feel that we are invisible. Why doesn’t someone stick up for us?
The most hilarious part was when that one worthless politician made the comment that federal employees should be held accountable based on performance and results (I'm paraphrasing and I'm not going to watch that dumpster fire again to get the exact quote). I mean yeah, that would be great. Let's start with the federal employees who haven't performed the most basic function of their job for 30 years, which is passing a budget on time.
But they apparently don't understand basic math or how phones work, so I'm not holding my breath.
MAGA won so telework and federal employees will be under attack. There is high probability that our telework days are about to end. Unfortunately, this is our new reality.
President-elect Donald Trump has already made clear that bringing federal workers back to the office is a priority. During a Dec. 16 news conference at Mar-a-Lago, he said, "If people don't come back to work, come back into the office, they're going to be dismissed."
In a House Oversight Committee Hearing on Capitol Hill Wednesday, Republicans cited the ripple effect empty offices have had on the D.C. economy, with several restaurants and stores shutting down. They also point to what they see as poor job performance by some government employees.
God forbid anyone in government or business make an effort to adapt to the changed reality. Definitely more productive to continue pissing away money to continue complaining about how unfair it is that people are working from home.
Some members of Congress want to avoid admitting that they themselves are partially at fault for the large SSA backlogs and long wait times. They did not give SSA the adequate funding, as O'Malley repeatedly pointed out at the hearing,
So these Congresspeople instead blame SSA employees, and insist we are taking bubble baths or otherwise slacking off when we work from home. And they won't even admit we are working, from home, coming up with insults in their return to office bills such as naming it "back to work".
They should be ashamed of themselves. In point of fact I work very hard from home and even work beyond my hours, after I sign off from WebTa.
It's a shame news organization are not doing polls to guage americans thoughts on the matter. Personally,if processing increase or not in decline then as individual i'm fine with it.
Not seeing comments on the supposed highlight of the hearing where a Congressman was on hold with 800 number for close to an hour and half.
While it may be rare, it only takes an instance or two of employees totally abusing telework for others to think that's what most employees do.
In my mid sized office I knew one guy was running a business while teleworking as a CSR. I saw google reviews saying service was slow at his business and that he was talking to someone about SSA matters.
@2:20. Yet that same Congressperson has had no problem paying unbelievably huge sums of taxpayers’ money to private student loan servicing companies whose 1-800 number wait times make SSA’s feel like they’re over in the blink of an eye. And the wait times is a direct consequence their party’s failure to give SSA the funding it needs for staffing (and they damn well know it).
To 12:40: Me too! Sometimes I even start working before signing in to Web TA. To 2:20: Not all SSA employees work on the 800 number.
That's noble, but SSA culture now stinks because of telework. People don't see each other enough to have each others backs. If you like employee turnover, stick with telework.
You do know that HQ is located in a suburb of Baltimore?
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