President Donald Trump’s executive order requiring all federal employees return to work in-person on a full-time basis will likely lead to legal challenges from unions and could provoke a retirement surge in the federal workforce.
In his order, Trump said “heads of all departments and agencies in the executive branch of government shall, as soon as practicable, take all necessary steps to terminate remote work arrangements.”
One of the main issues is that nearly 30% of federal employees belong to unions and a lot of them have preexisting bargaining deals in place that allow them to work from home at least some of the time.
“The president, historically, has not had the authority to unilaterally alter the terms of labor contracts,” said Terry Clower, director of the Center for Regional Analysis at George Mason University. “He doesn’t have the authority, despite some rhetoric about ‘breaking the unions,’ as the old saying would go.”
Another important point, according to Clower, is that around 30% of the federal workforce is eligible to retire.
“Some of them might choose that option,” Clower said, adding that people may decide to leave their job instead of fighting traffic to get into the office all the time.
“If you’re having to do that every day, it could be that other jobs look more attractive,” Clower said. “One of the responses to the pandemic with some folks around here was they chose to move further out to where they could afford to actually buy a home.”
One paragraph in the order includes the phrase “provided that the department and agency heads shall make exemptions they deem necessary.”
Jason Miller, executive editor for WTOP’s sister station Federal News Network, said that could be viewed as a significant loophole.
He said agency heads are allowed “to stick with telework” if an office doesn’t have enough space for all its personnel. He also suggested federal employees pause before acting.
“Wait and see how your management reacts,” Miller said. “Remember, just because the politicos say, ‘Do this,’ there is downward effect. It does take a long time to get down to the people who work day in and day out and the managers, because those are all career people.”
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