Today, at approximately 4:30 PM, DC declared a state of emergency and a public health emergency and recommended that “non-essential mass gatherings, including conferences and conventions” be postponed or canceled. Mass gatherings are defined as events with 1,000 or more people in one location. These declarations allow Mayor Bowser to make use of a broader array of authorities to prevent further spread of COVID-19.
Read MoreFull-time Teleworkers Back in NTEU 280 Bargaining Unit
Full-time remote teleworkers voted unanimously to be included in NTEU 280’s bargaining unit and they have now officially rejoined. We are thrilled to welcome these employees back to NTEU Chapter 280.
Read MoreTrump to Sign Bill Impacting Federal Employees
On Monday, August 13th, President Trump will visit Fort Drum to sign the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019. The bill includes several government-wide personnel provisions. The General Services Administration will extend its pilot telework program until December 31, 2020. The pilot telework program authorizes agencies to pay, with certain restrictions, necessary travel expenses for employees participating in a telework program. Also, agencies will be able to use direct hire authority for college and post-secondary students. This authority allows agencies to fill vacancies in specific occupations, grade levels, and locations when it can be proven that there is a critical hiring need or a severe shortage of candidates. View the text of the bill here.
Flooded Reagan Building Offices to Reopen Monday
NTEU Chapter 280 and AFGE Local 3331 completed their final of three safety checks of the recently-flooded Reagan building offices. We wrote about the flood in a recent post. The office spaces have been cleared to re-open by the unions and facilities, and should be fully open to employees on Friday, April 13.
GSA replaced wet carpeting and wet ceiling tiles. They also steam cleaned the fabric cube walls of flooded cubes and wiped down all desk surfaces. Employees returned to the 5th floor last week, and the 4th floor earlier this week, and will re-occupy the still-closed 3rd floor tomorrow.
During its safety walk-through, NTEU....
Read MorePioneering Fulltime Telework at EPA (Part 2 of 2)
Since my first installment of Pioneering Fulltime Telework at the EPA back in October of 2016, there have been a lot of changes across the federal government. For the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), it is likely that we will be doing more with less in the years to come – smaller budgets, smaller staff, and a smaller physical footprint.
Thomas Edison said: “The value of an idea lies in the using of it.” Fulltime telework has value – actually a lot of value – if it is used. The smallest expansion of fulltime telework at the EPA could save millions of taxpayer dollars while meeting and exceeding the business needs of the Agency.
Imagine if EPA encouraged just 20% of its workforce to fulltime telework, it would slash nearly 1% of its annual budget – some $45.6 million!....
Read MoreNo Heat? You Can Telework!
Many of you received an email from facilities and/or your management over the last couple of days about the lack of heat in certain parts of the William Jefferson Clinton North and South buildings. We are told that the heating outage will not be resolved until next week. That means it will get mighty cold in your office and make it uncomfortable or unsafe to work there.
So what can you do?
Read MoreTelework Available for New Employees During Safetrack
Prior to today, EPA limited who could telework to those employees that had been with EPA for not less than 90 days - six months, at the supervisor's discretion. In other words, you had to work for EPA for at least 90 days before you could even request telework.
Today Chapter 280 signed an agreement with EPA that allows new employees to begin teleworking immediately, with supervisor approval, if they've been impacted by Metro's Safe Track repairs. NTEU Chapter 280 has been negotiating this and other Safe Track-related flexibilities with the agency in an effort to minimize the impacts of the track work on its members. It's been difficult, and the agency has not been very cooperative, but on this issue they agreed.
Specifically,...
Read MorePioneering Fulltime Telework at EPA (Part 1 of 2)
Last summer, my spouse, who works for U.S. Department of Justice, was promoted and reassigned to Albuquerque, New Mexico. Like many couples, we discussed and debated whether this move made sense for our individual careers and our life together as a married couple. I believed my twenty year career with EPA, an Agency with a mission I loved and worked so hard to further, was coming to an abrupt end.
Around the same time, a new collective bargaining agreement between the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) entered into effect for all employees in the bargaining unit, expanding telework options to include fulltime telework. I explored the notion of fulltime telework with my management and the union. I am happy to say that I am writing this blog from Albuquerque, New Mexico as an EPA Headquarters employee assigned to the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA).....
Read MoreWaiver of Telework Waiting Period for Certain Employees
The new NTEU telework article in our collective bargaining agreement reduces the time that new employees must wait to telework from one year (old agreement) to between 3-6 months (Article 54, Section 8), as determined by your manager. A new policy waiver allows managers to forego the waiting period altogether for episodic telework in certain situations.....
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