A victory, an EEOC report, and threats to flexible work options
Hi everyone,
First, a landmark victory: Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco issued a comprehensive, Department-wide sexual misconduct policy that overhauls DOJ’s prior approach and empowers the groundbreaking Sexual Misconduct Response Unit. The policy adopts the recommendations of the Sexual Harassment Steering Committee, on which three DOJ GEN board members served. That committee was formed because in 2021, DOJ GEN pushed for its creation to address what DOJ’s Office of the Inspector General described as a “systemic” problem at the Department. For decades, countless employees, including DOJ GEN members, suffered because of the Department’s mishandling of sexual misconduct. After DOJ GEN’s years of advocacy, the Department will finally embrace best practices and take a survivor-centered, trauma-informed approach to the problem. Employees will be able to find the new policy on DOJ’s intranet.
Second, we want to share a new report from the EEOC finding that federal employees 40 and over face a disproportionately large gender pay gap. By some measures, the gap can three times as large for these workers than for feds under 40. The Federal News Network’s coverage of the report includes a comment from DOJ GEN.
Finally, here are some updates on telework:
In the past two weeks, the new Congress has introduced an array of bills that would scale back federal employees' ability to telework (different iterations of some of them had been introduced in the last Congress).
The “Return to Work Act” would "reinstate telework policies that were in place on December 31, 2019."
The “Federal Employee Return to Work Act” would bar federal employees from receiving locality pay if they telework once a week or more (employees with a disability and a reasonable accommodation are exempt). This could result in a 30% pay cut for feds in locations with a high cost of living.
The “Requiring Effective Management of Telework Employees Act” would require agencies to treat teleworking employees differently by measuring their login data and network traffic.
A December report called Out of Office from the new Senate DOGE Caucus claimed that 90% of federal employees telework, only 6% of federal employees work entirely in-person, and nearly 33% of federal workers are entirely remote. The chair of the caucus stated that for “years, I have been tracking down bureaucrats relaxing in bubble baths, playing golf, getting arrested, and doing just about everything besides their jobs.” While it’s true that just about everyone loves a bubble bath, these claims are belied by government data. The nearly 3,000-page, August 2024 OMB Report to Congress and Real Property Utilization (happy reading!) showed that 54% of federal employees spent all their work hours at their agency offices, those who telework still spent on average 61.2% of their work hours in person, and just 10% of the civilian federal workforce is approved for remote work. AFGE, the largest federal employee union, laid out the facts in a December 6 press release.
The Government Accountability Office released a report in November showing that in the federal agencies it examined, providing federal employees generous telework privileges helps the agencies recruit talent, and that strict in-person requirements led to high rates of attrition.
President-elect Trump commented last month on a five-year extension to the Social Security Administration employees’ telework privileges, signed by AFGE and agency leadership: “It’s ridiculous. So it was like a gift to a union, and we’re going to obviously be in court to stop it.”
Stay tuned, and have a good week.
Best,
Stacey
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