AFGE Confirms 600 COVID-19 Fatalities as Commerce, HUD Release Reentry Plans
Everett Kelley, National President of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), revealed at the union's annual legislative conference this week that more than 600 members have died of COVID-19. The figure is based on confirmed results from a union survey and thus has the potential to be understated, illustrating how difficult it is to get a full picture of the pandemic's impact on the federal community.
With these statistics in mind, Kelley stated that AFGE continues to negotiate with agency leadership over the health and safety provisions that serve as the basis for collective bargaining on reentry into office settings. In the current negotiations, the union is requesting that federal agencies maintain workplace flexibility and telework opportunities, while seeking hazardous duty pay and hazardous overtime for front-line employees exposed to COVID-19 on the job.
According to AFGE, the union is monitoring the situation to make sure bargaining unit employees can return to work safely, and it seeks benefits for members exposed to COVID-19 at work.
“It’s hard for me to say when I would like to see everybody back in the workplace, because every situation is different,” Kelley stated, “More than anything, I want to see an assurance that the agency is going to take the reentry very seriously and listen and get input from our union and negotiate in a fair manner.”
As detailed in the State of the Union, the Biden Administration outlined expectations for the “vast majority” of the federal workforce to return to the office by the end of April.
Over the past month, nine federal agencies have released detailed reentry plans. Several agencies have determined that their offices will adopt a "future of work" approach, but few have offered specifics. As previously reported in FEDmanager, the Defense Department recently issued guidance on the reentry of civilian employees that emphasized flexibility, but left the development of human capital strategies to managers.
In a department-wide email last week, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and Deputy Secretary Don Graves disclosed that all employees are to return to the office by April 25. The news was prefaced with a baseline telework policy which allows employees to work remotely up to two days a week. Individual bureaus have discretion beyond these two days, according to departmental guidance.
Secretary Raimondo and Deputy Secretary Graves stated that Commerce would have a hybrid workplace that acknowledges both the value of teleworking as well as the desire for in-person engagement.
“None of us expected our posture of maximum telework to last for two years and now the time has arrived for us to usher in the future of work for the Department of Commerce," the pair wrote, "Going forward, we will use our experience to continuously improve our hybrid workplace policy to ensure that we are doing our best to meet your needs while achieving our mission."
Similarly, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has specified that it will lift maximum telework on April 25. In an email, HUD Deputy Secretary Adrianne Todman instructed employees to report to their official duty station at least twice during the first two pay periods.
“We have made some initial investments in our physical workspace to accommodate work arrangements, and we are providing training to help supervisors prepare for the future,” Deputy Secretary Todman wrote, “We will continue working with our union partners towards finalizing negotiations on the permanent, expanded flexibilities, which we expect to be in line with those offered by both private industry and other government agencies."
According to Deputy Secretary Todman, the agency’s Chief Human Capital Officer will provide additional guidance to the workforce in the coming days and will provide further details to all supervisors and managers separately.
