Trump Wants Federal Workers Back In The Office. It May Be A Tall Task

The Treasury Department headquarters in D.C. (Michael A. McCoy for The Washington Post)

President-elect Donald Trump warned federal employees last week that they must return to the office — or else “they’re going to be dismissed.”

The threat was the latest and loudest signal yet that Trump, his allies and Republicans in Congress are committed to ending a remote-work culture that became widespread for the civil service of 2.3 million during the coronavirus pandemic but that many conservatives now decry as an outdated taxpayer-funded perk that has hurt performance across the government.

A quick return to pre-pandemic — or even stricter — federal office policiesis not likely to happen with the stroke of a presidential pen.

Trump’s expected return-to-office mandate faces furious resistance from federal employees, many of whom are covered by union agreements that guarantee work-from-home policies — including some contracts extended in recent weeks by outgoing Biden officials eager to blunt Trump’s impact on the workforce.

About 56 percent of the civil service is covered by collective bargaining contracts, many of which include provisions for telework, according to federal data and union officials. A record 10 percent of federal jobs now are designated as fully “remote,” with the official workplace an employee’s home or rented space far from an agency headquarters or regional office. The General Services Administration, which manages federal buildings, has also moved aggressively in recent years to shed costly excess office space as Biden officials kept pandemic policies in place.

“It’s in a lot of labor contracts,” Cathie McQuiston, deputy general counsel at the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the largest union representing federal workers, said of the telework arrangements. “And at a lot of these agencies, the reality is, they don’t have the place to put people to force them back five days a week.”

Return-to-office mandates will be a huge expense for the incoming Trump administration, and will undercut its goal of slashing the federal budget, McQuiston predicted.

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