President's Perspective, Winter/Spring 2010: When a huge storm dumped massive quantities of snow on Washington in February, it caused actual, rather than just figurative, gridlock in our nation’s capital. The federal government effectively shut down for the entire week. In agencies such as the SEC, however, much work continued to be accomplished because of telework.

The Union negotiated this program for employees across the agency. And, during our last round of contract negotiations, we fought hard to expand this important benefit by negotiating the “Expanded Telework Program,” under which employees are permitted to telework on a recurring basis for 3, 4 or, in some cases, 5 days per week. The details of the telework program may be found in Article 11 of the Union’s Collective Bargaining Agreement.

The telework program has been a huge success. According to the most recent data received by the Union from the SEC, during Fiscal Year 2009 there were over 680 recurring teleworkers in the SEC bargaining unit who regularly telework anywhere from one to ten days per pay period. That is roughly one quarter of our non-management workforce. Of that number, approximately 350 work in Headquarters and the Virginia Operations center. Collectively, these employees regularly teleworked approximately 620 days per week. That means that, during the government shutdown in February due to the storm, this virtual workforce of SEC teleworkers was able to put in approximately 5,000 man-hours performing the work of the SEC during a week when the physical facilities at Headquarters and the Op Center were inaccessible.

Thus, while February’s snowstorm was an unpleasant experience for many, it did positively demonstrate the extraordinary value of telework to the SEC. Indeed, in addition to affording SEC employees a more flexible work life that enables them to reduce time spent commuting and spend it instead with their families, telework also pays real dividends to the agency in the form of continuity of operations.

In fact, federal telework programs are intended, in part, to provide such continuity of operations during an emergency situation. It is for that reason that Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry recently wrote to chief human capital officers across the federal government in advance of the Washington snowstorm that they should utilize it to “test their telework plans in the context of emergency preparedness.” Berry is a strong advocate for expanding telework in the federal government by 50% by 2011.

Unfortunately, however, many managers at the SEC remain skeptical of the Union-negotiated telework program. These managers continue to place numerous obstacles in the paths of employees who seek to enter into telework agreements and, in many cases, refuse to allow their employees to telework at all. The Union has been required to file a number of grievances to address these situations.

Furthermore, the Office of Human Resources has attempted to force the Union to accept purported “measurements” of the success of the agency’s telework program that included biased, unscientific surveys of individuals who do not telework. Such actions appear to be designed to damage the reputation of the program, rather than to foster it.

If you have had problems regarding your legitimate requests to telework, please visit this page on our website to let us know what happened: www.secunion.org/TeleworkSurvey42010.

The Union views telework as an important benefit. We will continue to fight to protect and expand upon the telework program at the SEC, and we will keep you informed about those efforts.

by Chapter 293 President Greg Gilman