Government Staff Say They’re Forced to Come In for No Reason
For years, the Trump administration reined in work-from-home; now public-sector workers say such resistance to telework is putting their lives at risk.
Long before the novel coronavirus, the Trump administration tried to rein in telework across federal agencies, using policies and collective bargaining proposals to restrict employees’ discretion to work from home. Now, as a pandemic sweeps the nation, employees at federal and state government agencies say that same insistence on in-person work is putting their health at risk.
Along with failing to provide protective equipment for critical workers, public employees say, agencies are requiring them to come into the office to perform tasks that could be done remotely or put off until it’s safe. Thousands of government employees have contracted Covid-19.