Trump admin challenges unions’ telework rights

By Kevin Bogardus | 02/03/2025 04:22 PM EST

The president has pushed to return federal employees to the office full time.

A person teleworking from home.

The Trump administration is targeting telework for federal employees and wants civil servants to return to the office full time. Marie Hubert Psaila/Abaca/Sipa USA

The Trump administration and federal unions are speeding toward a clash over contract protections for teleworking federal employees.

The Office of Personnel Management released new guidance Monday stating that agencies setting telework levels for their staffers are within their rights. Unions can bargain for their members’ eligibility within those levels, but it is up to management to decide who can have that workplace flexibility and to what degree, the guidance said.

“The substantive amount of telework agencies authorize and the substantive determinations of which positions will be eligible for telework is a management right,” said the memo, sent by acting OPM Director Charles Ezell to agency and department heads.

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Ezell continued, “Provisions of collective bargaining agreements that conflict with management rights are unlawful and cannot be enforced.”

Under the guidance, agencies are to review language in their collective bargaining agreements and determine if they are “unenforceable.” Any provisions that restrict agencies from determining how much time employees can telework and who is eligible “are likely unlawful and unenforceable.”

Several unions have collective bargaining agreements with their agencies that have strong telework and remote work protections.

President Donald Trump, however, has pushed to return federal employees to the office full time. In addition, he sent a memo Friday saying agencies should not stand by union contracts reached late in the previous administration.

The legality of those moves is in question. Contracts, negotiated over years between unions and their agencies, carry the force of law.

The American Federation of Government Employees, the country’s largest federal worker union, plans to fight back.

“Federal employees should know that approved union contracts are enforceable by law, and the president does not have the authority to make unilateral changes to those agreements,” AFGE President Everett Kelley said in a statement Friday.

Kelley added, “AFGE members will not be intimidated. If our contracts are violated, we will aggressively defend them.”