OPM Guidance – Telework and Collective Bargaining Obligations
 
Yesterday afternoon, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issued its “Guidance on Collective Bargaining Obligations in Connection with Return to In Person Work.” That guidance essentially instructs agencies to declare as unenforceable many telework and remote work provisions in negotiated contracts. OPM’s instruction for agencies to disapprove telework and remote work is overly broad and contrary to law. It is designed to give agencies an excuse to break their contractual obligations.
 
NTEU contracts are the result of many hours of back-and-forth negotiation. Agency heads appropriately approved the agreements as consistent with law, and arbitrators and other adjudicators have upheld this language. The new administration cannot legally rescind that language or agency head approval simply because it prefers employees to work from the office. 
 
Under long-standing law, agencies must honor their collective bargaining obligations regarding telework and remote work. We have repeatedly made clear to agencies that they must comply with the language in our contracts. I will keep you informed about our efforts to aggressively enforce our contracts.