Earlier this month, reports surfaced that President Biden’s former Social Security Administration (SSA) Commissioner Martin O’Malley signed a deal to make teleworking policies permanent until 2029 for more than 40,000 federal employees.
The move was seemingly a direct attempt to impede President-elect Donald Trump’s efforts to eliminate the practice, something Trump pledged to do throughout his campaign – and shed new light on just how empty government offices remain years after the end of the COVID-19 pandemic. The agreement could also complicate the efforts of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy at the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to force federal employees back into the office.
O’Malley began negotiations the day after November’s general election with the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) union. The contract deal, which allows for up to four days of teleworking per week, was then finalized this month by the agency. After inking the deal, O’Malley promptly resigned to run for chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
It’s difficult not to assume brazen malice from O’Malley toward Trump on his way out the door – especially since O’Malley resisted writing this teleworking policy into contracts during his tenure after stating in his Senate confirmation hearings that he wanted to improve “customer service” at the agency.
The news is also proof positive that Trump’s plans for bold reform of the federal workforce are exactly what America needs, and that voters were right to put their trust in him to get the government back to work.
“Requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome,” Ramaswamy and Musk wrote in a November Wall Street Journal op-ed, before news of the SSA telework deal dropped. “If federal employees don’t want to show up, American taxpayers shouldn’t pay them for the Covid-era privilege of staying home.”
AFGE later inadvertently proved Ramaswamy’s and Musk’s assertion right when it attempted to publicly defend the SSA teleworking deal. AFGE’s SSA general committee admitted that “more than a quarter of employees are retirement-eligible, and 60% say they will seek other jobs if telework ends.”
Putting aside for a moment the political efficacy of federal bureaucratic unions, AFGE’s statement validates Musk and Ramaswamy’s claim that doing away with telework would expedite Trump’s proposed reduction in the federal workforce – saving taxpayers money and likely streamline agency operations.
A new report from Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa has shed further light on just how extensive the telework problem is throughout the federal government, not just in SSA.
Over the last two years, Ernst’s office found, 90 percent of bureaucrats have teleworked, just six percent show up five days a week, and nearly 33 percent of federal employees are entirely remote. “These individuals have been caught doing just about everything during the workday except working,” Ernst wrote on X. “My investigations have exposed bureaucrats playing golf, sitting in jail, relaxing in a bubble bath, and taking extended beach vacations. All while on the clock.”
Ernst accompanied the report by calling out the uncomfortable reality that “the nation’s capital is a ghost town,” adding that government buildings are averaging an occupancy rate of only 12 percent.
During the Biden administration, not a single agency had even half of its workforce show up to the office for in-person work. The government spends more than $15 billion in taxpayer money to keep these federal office buildings leased and maintained. This is precisely the type of waste, fraud, and abuse from the federal bureaucracy that Trump warned voters about during the campaign and that DOGE has been charged with addressing.
Ernst, who is chair of the Senate DOGE Caucus, recently unveiled legislation that would require federal agencies to limit their allowance for federal workers to telework. The legislation is gaining momentum among Republicans, who will control both chambers of Congress next year.
Federal unions recently fired back at these efforts to end telework, claiming not as many federal bureaucrats are teleworking as reported. But Ernst rightly pointed out that their frantic response and defense of telework is further proof of its inefficiency.
“Federal employees are already squealing, and the unions representing them are shamelessly fighting tooth and nail against returning to the office,” Ernst recently told reporters. “I invite public sector unions to support my legislation to track their productivity during the workday. This will show how hard they are working for the American people and settle this debate once and for all. In the coming days, I will be highlighting more profiles of ‘working’ from home. The tips from whistleblowers just keep coming into my office.”
Trump’s determination coupled with a willing Republican Congress, likely means bureaucrats’ telework days are numbered, and federal employees will have to come back to the office just like the taxpayers who pay their salaries.
W.J. Lee has served in the White House, NASA, on multiple political campaigns, and in nearly all levels of government.
