https://federalnewsnetwork.com/unions/2026/03/social-security-ordered-to-restore-telework-epa-and-nasa-roll-back-collective-bargaining/
Social Security ordered to restore telework; EPA and NASA roll back collective bargaining
March 11, 2026 7:03 pm
A third-party arbitrator is ordering the Social Security Administration to restore telework for many of its employees, after the agency indefinitely suspended workplace flexibilities under the Trump administration.
The arbitrator, in an order signed on Wednesday, directed SSA to restore telework for employees represented by the American Federation of Government Employees. The ruling brings back telework to levels that had been in place before mid-March 2025.
Early in his second term, President Donald Trump ordered all federal employees to return to the office full-time. Before this mandate, SSA employees represented by AFGE were generally allowed to telework about two days a week.
Arbitrator Sarah Miller Espinosa found that SSA violated its 2019 National Agreement with the American Federation of Government Employees when the agency stopped telework for many of its bargaining unit members.
“The agency’s breach of its commitment, which meant thousands of employees were mandated to forego approved telework and return indefinitely to full-time in-person work, clearly went to the heart of the parties’ agreement,” Espinosa wrote.
While the labor contract gives SSA management the discretion to temporarily pause telework in limited cases, Espinosa wrote that the agency’s actions “did not comport with any reasonable interpretation of ‘temporarily suspend’ based on operational needs,” and amounted to a “clear and patent breach” of its collective bargaining agreement with the union.
Espinosa also ordered SSA to “cease and desist from further violations” of its collective bargaining agreement with AFGE.
The arbitrator’s ruling won’t have an immediate impact on SSA’s workforce. An SSA spokesperson said in a statement that the agency “strongly disagrees with today’s flawed decision,” and will appeal it to the Federal Labor Relations Authority, which has a majority of Trump appointees.
“The federal government has a return to in-person work mandate. SSA has realized significant improvements in our performance, providing better, faster customer service for the American people through hands-on work and hands-on management,” the spokesperson said.
“Our federal workforce is stronger when we are in person, working shoulder-to-shoulder, serving the public,” the spokesperson added.
In March 2025, former acting Commissioner Leland Dudek told union officials that a pause on telework would only last 90 days. However, that suspension of telework extended beyond Dudek’s tenure and continued under the leadership of the current SSA commissioner, Frank Bisignano.
AFGE officials told the arbitrator that “the agency’s open-ended, indefinite suspension of telework operates as a functional elimination of regularly scheduled telework.”
Espinosa wrote that SSA “presented no testimony or persuasive documentary evidence” to determine how long this pause on telework would last, “measured either in days or months or as determined by circumstances or conditions specified by the agency.”
During the arbitration hearing, SSA didn’t call as witnesses any current or former agency officials involved in the decision to suspend telework.
Instead, the agency provided testimony from Ralph Patinella, a senior advisor to the Associate Commissioner for the Office of Labor-Management and Employee Relations, who, during his testimony, said a “temporary” suspension of telework could be “indefinite.”
Espinosa, however, rejected that claim and wrote that “by definition, temporary and indefinite are not synonymous.”
“The agency could easily have rebutted the evidence presented by the union and demonstrated that the cessation of telework was actually a suspension, that is, temporary in nature, if, in fact, that was the case,” she wrote.
“Despite ample opportunities to do so between the time of the suspension and through the hearing, however, the agency did not. The approach of ‘take our word for it’ is insufficient in light of the evidence presented.”
A provision in AFGE’s collective bargaining agreement with SSA gives agency management “sole discretion to temporarily change, reduce, or suspend approved telework day(s) for any employee(s), office, component, or agency-wide due to operational needs.”
The contract also gives agency management sole discretion to change, reduce, or suspend approved telework for any employee due to their performance.
1/2