NTEU Pushes OPM for Hazard Pay for COVID-Exposed Employees

NTEU has asked the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to issue regulations to make clear that federal employees exposed to COVID and other serious, communicable diseases in the course of their duties during a pandemic can recover hazardous duty pay.

This is part of NTEU’s ongoing, multi-pronged efforts to obtain hazardous duty pay for federal employees who were required by their agencies to work near COVID-infected persons during the pandemic. A recent court decision held, unfortunately, that existing OPM regulations do not allow for such hazardous duty pay. In light of that decision, NTEU is petitioning OPM for new regulations. NTEU’s petition would cover federal employees’ exposure not just to COVID, but to any serious, communicable disease during a pandemic. And it asks OPM to implement such regulations retroactively so that they would cover the portion of the COVID-19 pandemic preceding the widespread availability of vaccines.

We will press OPM to do the right thing and grant this petition.

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