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     From Government Executive : The Social Security Administration on Monday informed employees of its various subcomponents that it will move forward with new cuts to telework policies, a move quickly decried by union officials who said they were left out of the notification process. ... Rich Couture, who serves both as a spokesman for the American Federation of Government Employees� general committee representing Social Security employees and president of AFGE Council 215, which represents workers at the agency�s hearings and appeals offices, said management similarly rejected his own efforts to learn about the changes, and that he spent much of his afternoon in meetings and working with fellow union representatives to cobble together a list of the reforms across the agency. �I�ve got to tell you, the depth of disrespect and disregard for AFGE with the rollout of this announcement, where the press found out before the union and th...

     From Government Executive : A group of 44 Democratic senators on Monday urged Social Security Administration Commissioner Andrew Saul to reverse his decision to cancel telework for nearly 12,000 employees. ... In a letter Monday , 44 Senate Democrats, led by Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., urged Saul to �reconsider� the decision to end the telework program. �We understand that SSA�s new contract with the American Federation of Government Employees has just come into effect, and that this contract conferred some degree of discretion to SSA management to set new rules for teleworking,� the lawmakers wrote. �We do not believe, however, that this justifies management�s unilateral decision to rescind telework entirely for the 12,000 affected employees . . . We are concerned that SSA is not providing sufficient time for workers to alter their arrangements to account for this policy change.� The senators wrote that while improving customer service for Social Security ...

     Mike Causey at Federal News Network has written a column titled Teleworking: If it ain�t broke don�t fix it . He mostly writes about the situation at Social Security. Here's an e-mail he received from a Social Security employee: As if the telework situation could not get any worse, the administrator is having the top managers over [at] the Security West building send us moderately threatening emails. One went out yesterday. Speaking to us like we children, he told us that we were to be committed to our work and that our numbers have increased since 2018. It is scary and menacing. He wants the managers to walk up and down the aisles while we work to intimidate us. They don�t want to do this but are threatened as well. �[SSA Commissioner Andrew] Saul is angry that we are fighting back through the media and senators. I am writing everyone. Our building does not service the public over the phone. We do claims, etc. He stated that he ended telework because...

     From a press release : Today, House Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee Chairman John B. Larson (CT-01) , House Appropriations Labor, Health, Human Services, and Education Subcommittee Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro (CT-03) , House Ways and Means Worker and Family Support Subcommittee Chairman Danny K. Davis (IL-07) , and House Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee Chairman John Lewis (GA-05) sent a letter to Andrew Saul, Commissioner of the Social Security Administration (SSA), to request transparency and more information after SSA abruptly ended a pilot telework program. �SSA�s Operations division initiated the Telework Pilot in 2013 and has expanded the pilot significantly over the years. Today, roughly one-quarter of SSA Operations staff or 12,000 employees telework between one and two days per week�. While the SSA Operations Telework Pilot has existed for nearly six years, SSA apparently did not adequately evaluate the pilot and has not articulate...

     The Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) has given the union (NTEU) that represents attorneys and decision writers in its Office of Hearings Operations (OHO) a win on telework. Social Security unilaterally terminated its contract with the union and refused to agree to terms requiring telework. FLRA ruled that Social Security had failed to produce evidence to back up its case and ruled for the union.