Ahead Of Trump’s Inauguration, 42,000 Federal Workers Lock In Remote Work Through 2029

President-elect Donald Trump and his advisers have made clear they want federal workers to return to the office five days a week, but unions are acting to make sure that doesn’t happen.

The American Federation of Government Employees, a union representing 42,000 Social Security Administration workers, reached an agreement with the SSA commissioner to lock in telework policies until 2029.

The new deal, first reported by Bloomberg, will allow SSA employees to maintain current levels of remote work, which require between two and five days of in-office work per week depending on the role.

The agreement was signed by SSA Commissioner Martin O’Malley, who stepped down from the job last month to mount a campaign for chair of the Democratic National Committee.

“This deal will secure not just telework for SSA employees, but will secure staffing levels through prevention of higher attrition, which in turn will secure the ability of the Agency to serve the public,” AFGE Chapter President Rich Couture wrote in a message to members viewed by Bloomberg.

The extension of work-from-home policies comes as Trump has directed billionaire Elon Musk and investor Vivek Ramaswamy to tackle government waste through a so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which will make recommendations to but operate outside of the federal government.

The pair have made it no secret that they want workers to return to prepandemic work patterns.

“Requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome: If federal employees don’t want to show up, American taxpayers shouldn’t pay them for the Covid-era privilege of staying home,” they wrote in a November Wall Street Journal op-ed.

The Trump transition team and an AFGE representative didn’t respond to a request for comment Wednesday morning. 

Executing a plan to return to strictly office work for federal workers is far more complicated than a simple mandate, which the Biden administration found out after announcing a plan to “aggressively execute” a return to office. 

Federal workers are represented by a patchwork of unions with no one organization dictating contracts or policies, and the push to bring workers back was immediately hampered by union disputes as labor organizations continue to fight to keep some of the flexibility that the pandemic necessitated.

The lagging return to office continues to drag down the sector’s performance in Washington, D.C., but the SSA is headquartered in Baltimore and has offices throughout the country. 

The SSA worker’s union is just one of several pushing the Biden administration to extend existing collective bargaining agreements ahead of Trump’s inauguration, according to Bloomberg.