The EPA has reached three tentative agreements with its biggest union on telecommuting, remote work, and work schedules—a significant win for workers who have long pressed for more flexibility and control over their work-life balance.
The pacts also will help the Environment Protection Agency fulfill its mission by preventing skilled employees from drifting away to other jobs, according to Joyce Howell, vice president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 3631 and the union’s chief negotiator.
“I think this administration is getting that we are a great asset of the U.S.,” Howell said Wednesday. “We’re going to be able to attract and keep the best people.”
The agreements must be ratified by the AFGE’s presidents and signed by EPA leadership, but those actions are considered pro forma exercises. Robert Coomber, the EPA’s national chief negotiator, has already signed the tentative deals.
One of the agreements doubles the number of days employees can telecommute, from two days a week to four. A separate agreement introduces the concept of remote work, under which employees can designate a location—including their own home—that’s not an EPA facility as their full-time official workplace.
The remote work agreement essentially means AFGE bargaining unit members may almost never have to report to their offices.
The third tentative...
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