SSA appeals arbitrator’s order to restore telework for its employees

The Social Security Administration is appealing an arbitrator’s decision requiring the agency to restore telework for its employees.

A third-party arbitrator ruled last month that SSA violated its collective bargaining agreement with the American Federation of Government Employees when it indefinitely suspended telework, and ordered the agency to restore workplace flexibilities that had been in place before mid-March 2025.

An SSA spokesperson said in a statement Friday that the agency has appealed the case to the Federal Labor Relations Authority, which has a majority of Trump appointees. SSA is not obligated to comply with the arbitrator’s decision while the case is under FLRA appeal.

The SSA spokesperson said in a statement that the agency “strongly supports the federal government’s directive to return to in-person work,” and that the workforce “is stronger when we are in person, working shoulder-to-shoulder.”

“We have 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.

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.

While the Trump administration has excluded many agencies from collective bargaining, SSA continues to recognize its labor contract with AFGE.

Arbitrator Sarah Miller Espinosa found that SSA violated its 2019 National Agreement with AFGE 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.

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 present any current or former agency officials involved in the decision to suspend telework as witnesses.

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.”

SSA told the arbitrator that it suspended telework for employees who were AFGE bargaining unit members “to address critical operational needs to improve the quality and timeliness of its customer service.”

“As of the beginning of 2025, the agency’s backlogs of pending claims were at or near all-time record highs, customers were waiting an unacceptable length of time to receive disability benefit decisions, and field offices were struggling to handle long lines, early office closures, and delays for in-office appointments based on a lack of available on-site employees due to telework,” the agency told the arbitrator.

A recent report from the Government Accountability Office found that SSA’s removal of telework opportunities has put the agency at risk of losing more staff, and some employees told GAO they have considered leaving for jobs with more flexibility and better telework opportunities. SSA lost at least 7,000 employees last year.

SSA buildings aren’t meeting 60% occupancy targets — but many are close

The Social Security Administration, along with more than 20 other large federal agencies, isn’t meeting minimum occupancy standards for its federal buildings.

Under the USE IT Act that former President Joe Biden signed in his final weeks in office, agencies must be able to show that their buildings meet at least a 60% utilization rate, or come up with plans to downsize their office space.

To comply with the USE IT Act, SSA has begun rolling out a “badge in/badge out” system requiring employees to scan in and out of their office buildings. The system is intended to collect occupancy data to quantify how much office space is being used by employees.

In an email obtained by Federal News Network, SSA told employees in mid-March to “start badging in and out at the beginning and end of your shift starting this afternoon.”

“We’re not used to badging out, especially since the card reader on the exterior of the building, so this will be an adjustment,” the agency told employees.

GSA published its first governmentwide snapshot of federal building utilization data last week. The USE IT Act requires the 24 largest agencies to share building utilization data with GSA. The database, so far, omits the Defense Department, one of the largest holders of real estate in the federal government and the U.S. Agency for International Development, which the Trump administration dismantled last year. 

The American Federation of Government Employees warned on Friday that the data could be used to justify closing or consolidating SSA field offices nationwide.

Jessica LaPointe, AFGE Council 220 president, said the agency remains at historically low staffing levels, and that the agency is only looking at the number of employees in these buildings — and not members of the public showing up at offices for help.

“SSA is already stretched thin as we face a 59-year staffing low,” LaPointe said. “Determining office usage based solely on the number of staff in attendance creates a false narrative that offices are underused or underneeded. In reality, they are simply understaffed.”

SSA officials have said the agency has no plans to close field offices, but the agency is planning to cut field office visits by 50%. 

SSA Commissioner Frank Bisignano told employees in a Jan. 12 all-hands meeting that “exactly zero field offices closed” last year, and that “we’re going to always have field offices.”

“If people want to come in and see us, we’ll be there. If people want to call us, we will answer the phone. And if people want to use the web, we will be available,” Bisignano told employees, according to a transcript obtained by Federal News Network

An SSA spokesperson said in a recent statement that “field offices are, and will always remain, our front-line, serving the more than 330 million Americans with Social Security numbers.”

According to data recently published by GSA, none of the buildings used by the 22 largest federal agencies are meeting a 60% minimum occupancy standard. SSA buildings are also falling short of these occupancy goals — but just barely, in many cases.

A Federal News Network analysis of the data shows that of the 1,372 SSA buildings that submitted to GSA, a majority of them are only a few employees shy of meeting the 60% occupancy target.

For about 75% of SSA buildings, adding a dozen employees or fewer would bring them into compliance with the USE IT’s minimum occupancy requirements.

More than 80 SSA buildings are a single employee away from meeting the target.

If you would like to contact this reporter about recent changes in the federal government, please email jheckman@federalnewsnetwork.com, or reach out on Signal at jheckman.29

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