President-elect Donald Trump threatened to fire federal employees who don’t come back to the office, and said he would go to court to challenge a Biden administration labor contract that locked in remote work arrangements for thousands of federal employees.
“If people don’t come back to work, come back into the office, they’re going to be dismissed,” Trump said in a press conference at his residence in Palm Beach, Florida on Monday.
“And somebody in the Biden administration even gave a five-year waiver of that so that for five years people don’t have to come back into the office,” he added. “It’s ridiculous. So it was like a gift to a union.”
The remote work provision was included in a contract between the Social Security Administration and the 42,000 workers represented by the American Federation of Government Employees. That contract solidified arrangements that require employees to be in the office two to five days a week, depending on the job.
“Collective bargaining agreements entered into by the federal government are binding and enforceable under the law,” AFGE National President Everett Kelley said in a statement. “We trust the incoming administration will abide by their obligations to honor lawful union contracts. If they fail to do so, we will be prepared to enforce our rights.”
The provision allowing for some remote work, first reported by Bloomberg, got the attention of Tesla Inc. and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency, a Trump initiative to cut up to $2 trillion in federal spending. Musk has long opposed work-from-home arrangements at his companies, saying office workers should have the same work rules as factory workers, food service employees and maintenance workers.
(Updates with AFGE statement in fifth paragraph)