Martin O’Malley, the previous Social Safety commissioner who’s now searching for to chair the Democratic Nationwide Committee, took the brunt of Home GOP anger over federal telework insurance policies – and various different matters – in a Home Committee on Oversight and Authorities Reform listening to on Thursday.
Republicans primarily took goal at O’Malley’s function in overseeing a late 2024 deal between the Social Safety Administration (SSA) and its staff’ union, the American Federation of Authorities Workers, that can lock within the present ranges of telework for union workers till October 2029 – past the tip of the Trump administration.
O’Malley, a former Maryland governor, was accountable for the company when that deal was inked. He left the publish in November.
“How is this good for democracy? The voters just delivered President Trump an electoral mandate to run the executive branch. Should union contracts designed to tie his hands take precedence over the mandate by the people?” Home Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) stated in his opening assertion.
O’Malley stated that he had modified on-site work necessities for these at SSA headquarters and aimed to spice up regional necessities for in-person work.
And O’Malley instructed Comer that in alternate for the telework settlement, the union gave up on various years-long grievances that, had they gone to trial, might have resulted in $10 million to $20 million in potential publicity for the company.
The actual problem for the SSA, O’Malley stated in his opening assertion, was a shrinking employees.
“Social Security, today, is struggling to serve more customers than ever with staffing levels which you have reduced to 50-year lows,” O’Malley stated. “Actions by Congress have reduced the customer service staffing to record lows, he said, adding that the “agency is forced to serve more and more customers than ever with fewer and fewer staff, year after year, after year.”
O’Malley’s bid to be chair of the Democratic Nationwide Committee was additionally introduced up a number of instances by Republicans, with some citing matters far faraway from the problem of federal telework.
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), who has grow to be a number one anti-transgender voice in Congress, requested O’Malley to outline what a girl is.
“You’re going to ask me to define what a woman is?” O’Malley requested. “I’m talking to a woman right now, a distinguished woman … I think you’re kind of denigrating the purpose of this hearing.”
“So the potentially future chair of the Democrat Party cannot define – let’s just for the record, Mr. Chairman – he cannot define what a woman is,” Mace stated.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) through the listening to introduced up O’Malley’s Catholic religion, and requested: “Do you serve God or do you serve the Democrat Party? … Will you be supporting the murder of the unborn up until the day of birth like your party does?”
“I trust the judgement of women and doctors over the judgement of government,” O’Malley stated.
The listening to on federal telework insurance policies, the primary listening to for the committee within the new Congress, comes as Republicans plot concepts to compel extra staff again to the workplace when President-elect Trump takes energy.
“To be clear, since the height of the pandemic, much of the federal workforce has gotten up and gone to work every day. This, for example, includes those working in veterans hospitals, patrolling the border, and performing other law enforcement functions,” Comer stated in his opening assertion.
“But the Biden Administration’s own data shows that the vast majority of federal office workers around the nation remain at home either some, most, or all the time.”
The deal with federal telework is complementary to a significant focus of the so-called Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE), a fee that President-elect Trump has pledged to create. Incoming DOGE co-chiefs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have criticized federal work-from-home insurance policies.
“President Trump was elected to put the federal bureaucracy in its place, and that includes back in the office,” stated Greene, who will chair a Delivering on Authorities Effectivity (DOGE) subcommittee that goals to coordinate with the White Home fee.
Democrats on the committee defended the apply of federal workers having the ability to telework.
“When it comes to employee telework, we should be focused on employee performance and the bottom line, not a rigid schedule of five days a week, eight hours a day,” stated Rating Member Gerry Connolly (D-Va.). “There is a difference between universal remote working in a pandemic and a scheduled architecture for telework that is programmed, approved, and overseen.”
Rep. Shontel Brown (D-Ohio) known as the listening to a “political assault on the federal workforce.”
And Rep. Summer time Lee (D-Pa.) turned Republicans’ personal deal with “efficiency” again on them.
“Since Republicans are so obsessed with efficiency that they created a subcommittee around it, I would love to talk about government efficiency,” Lee stated. “I think my Republican colleagues need to face some hard truths that some workers are going to be more efficient at home. Some are even going to get more work done or even work more hours by working from home. They waste less time, too, when they’re not commuting to the office.”
Former Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), who’s now president of the Federal Metropolis Council, a non-profit devoted to advancing civic life in Washington, D.C., stated that the federal authorities’s work-from-home charge had contributed to declining business property values, closure of small companies, and put monetary pressure on public transit methods.
“This isn’t just about maintaining buildings — it’s about maintaining the vibrant, collaborative environment that has long made Washington DC a unique and dynamic capital city,” Davis stated.
Republican employees on the Oversight and Authorities Reform Committee – its title not too long ago up to date from “Oversight and Accountability” within the final Congress – additionally launched a report on Wednesday tearing into federal telework insurance policies, titled: “The Lights Are On, But Everyone Is at Home: Why the New Administration Will Enter Largely Vacant Federal Agency Offices.”
It made a number of suggestions to regulate worker telework, together with restoring telework at businesses to not more than pre-pandemic ranges; contemplating laws to disallow collective bargaining over federal worker telework; and to decrease set native pay for distant federal workers on the “Rest of United States” charge, reasonably than the upper charges set for sure geographic areas.
In line with a Biden administration report launched final yr, about 1.2 million of the two.28 million federal workforce personnel labored totally on-site, whereas 1.1 million have been telework eligible, as of Could 2024. Charges of in-person working hours for workers diverse by company, from a low of 37.1 p.c for the Division of Housing and City Growth to a excessive of 93.7 p.c on the Division of Veterans Affairs.
