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.
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“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.
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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.
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.”
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“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.
SSA argued that the suspension of telework for field office employees “provided management with the capacity to assign more employees to assist in-person customers, avoided early office closures, and improved wait times for in-person appointments.”
Rich Couture, a spokesperson for the American Federation of Government Employees’ general committee for SSA, said the arbitrator’s ruling was a “positive step forward for SSA workers, who have had to pay thousands in commuting and childcare costs at a time when most AFGE bargaining unit employees aren’t making a living wage.”
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 that 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.
“Telework was, and remains, essential to preventing attrition at a time when SSA needs every employee it can hold onto,” Couture said.
EPA rescinds contract with NTEU
The Environmental Protection Agency rescinded its collective bargaining agreement with its second-largest union, the National Treasury Employees Union.
An EPA spokesperson said in a statement that the agency rescinded its December 2024 collective bargaining agreement with NTEU “as part of EPA’s continuing efforts to comply with the law and diligently implement” an executive order President Donald Trump signed in March 2025.
Trump’s executive order greatly expanded the number of agencies that are excluded from collective bargaining because their mission impacts national security.
While legal challenges to the executive order remain ongoing, the Office of Personnel Management recently advised more agencies to rescind their collective bargaining agreements. The IRS rescinded its labor contract with NTEU in late February.
In a letter to EPA officials, NTEU National President Doreen Greenwald wrote that the agency “cannot lawfully terminate its CBA” with the union, and that its lawsuit challenging the legality of the executive order remains pending.
“While the EPA has purported to terminate its CBA with NTEU, it cannot lawfully do so, and that CBA remains in effect,” Greenwald said.
E&E News first reported on EPA’s rescission of its collective bargaining agreement with NTEU.
NASA deems employees ineligible for collective bargaining
NASA is in the process of rolling back collective bargaining rights for some of its employees, while a court battle challenging these decisions remains ongoing.
In an email obtained by Federal News Network, NASA’s human resources office told bargaining unit employees on Feb. 24 that their personnel records have been updated “to show that they are no longer eligible for inclusion in a bargaining unit.”
NASA is one of about 20 agencies that the Trump administration exempted from collective bargaining in a March 2025 executive order, on the grounds that it serves national security. Several lawsuits challenging this executive order remain ongoing.
A federal judge in Washington, D.C., signed a preliminary injunction last fall blocking NASA and other agencies from enforcing a rollback of collective bargaining rights. An appeals court later stayed the lower court’s injunction while the case proceeds.
The International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers is among the unions leading this lawsuit.
Matt Biggs, president of IFPTE, said he requested to meet with NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman to discuss the agency updates to employee personnel files, but said NASA denied his request.
“NASA is attempting to implement this despite a pending legal challenge from IFPTE,” Biggs said.
A NASA spokesperson referred comments to the Justice Department. GovExec first reported on NASA’s updates to employee personnel files.
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