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Post by christina on Mar 11, 2020 9:07:27 GMT -5
Now he needs to tell the Commissioner of Social Security. Evidently the Commissioner hasn't gotten the word. Pixie Without listing all the small and easy things that ought be done that would minimally impact operations (like a sign in the lobby), I'm surprised employees aren't being told to bring home laptops. If something unfortunate and sudden happens employees may not even be able to telework. Agreed and if ssa is too late in doing so and employees can’t work, well too bad for ssa |
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Post by valard on Mar 11, 2020 9:57:17 GMT -5
"Can someone give us non wapo subscribers more details on this article? Thx"
Here is the article, formatting issues and all:
Trump administration wants hundreds of thousands of federal workers to be ready to telework full time
Understanding isolation, quarantine, and social distancing in the coronavirus era
As the coronavirus continues to spread, phrases like “quarantine,” “isolation,” and “social distancing” are making news. Here are the key differences of each. (Adriana Usero/The Washington Post)
By
Lisa Rein
March 10, 2020 at 10:10 p.m. CDT
The Trump administration is racing to develop contingency plans that would allow hundreds of thousands of employees to work remotely full time, an extreme scenario to limit the coronavirus that would test whether the government can carry out its mission from home offices and kitchen tables.
The Office of Personnel Management, which oversees policy for the workforce of 2.1 million, has urged agency heads in recent days to “immediately review” their telework policies, sign paperwork with employees laying out their duties, issue laptops and grant access to computer networks.
The administration has not issued a widespread mandate, but some offices already have acted. The Securities and Exchange Commission late Monday became the first federal agency in Washington to clear 2,400 employees from its headquarters after discovering that an employee might be infected.
The Seattle U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) field office in Tukwila, Wash., closed recently after an employee showed flu-like symptoms four days after visiting the Life Care Center in nearby Kirkland. (Stuart Isett)
The Seattle U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) field office in Tukwila, Wash., closed recently after an employee showed flu-like symptoms four days after visiting the Life Care Center in nearby Kirkland. (Stuart Isett)
On Tuesday, the International Trade Administration started sending staff home to self-quarantine if they have traveled out of the country. The State Department told its staff to set up emergency teleconference drills — and alternate who comes into the office to use classified systems to ensure that colleagues only gather in small groups, according to an internal memo.
The virus’s fast spread led many private companies weeks ago to send their staffs home to work remotely. But some corners of the federal government, the country’s largest employer, are only now confronting what could be an unprecedented shift to how they serve the public — for weeks or even months.
Close to half the federal workforce was eligible to telework when President Trump took office, on average one or two days a week, for snow days or sporadically. But few did it full time. Then the Trump administration scaled back working from home as a regular practice at multiple large agencies.
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What we know about the coronavirus: Symptoms, transmission and response
As of early March, people have tested positive for the coronavirus in about 70 countries. Officials are taking "unprecedented" actions. (Amber Ferguson, Jayne Orenstein/The Washington Post)
Now managers are scrambling to expand the policy. Employees who now telework a day or two a week could expand to full time. Others could work from home for the first time.
Remote work is the linchpin of the White House’s escalating emergency planning efforts, which could be deployed as the crisis worsens. With coronavirus cases now in 36 states and the District, the outbreak is forcing agencies to assess who on their staffs is set up to telework, who must stay on the job to serve the public and how to ensure their safety while keeping essential services going.
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Expanding telework already is bringing complications, among them administrative and equipment hurdles and restrictions for thousands of employees who work with classified material and can’t bring it home.
Anxious employees are waiting for instructions that have so far been uneven. The Pentagon says it’s moving quickly to ask employees who can to sign new telework agreements. The Internal Revenue Service, at the height of tax season, is not. Officials are expecting large numbers of absences in either case.
“This is uncharted territory,” said Paul Carlson, director of the Seattle Federal Executive Board, an association of senior officials that last week recommended telework for the area’s 22,000 employees.
Federal personnel director Dale Cabaniss described a “rapidly evolving situation” as she provided more detailed guidance over the weekend to address workplace rules, including a question that until now was unheard of: What happens if the kids are home because school is canceled — but telework policy doesn’t allow their parents to work with them in the house?
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(The answer: Agencies might be flexible in an emergency like this, but employees will have to keep close track of their work hours).
When should I call in sick? A Q&A for federal employees about the coronavirus.
OPM cannot force an office to shift its staff to remote work. “Each agency is responsible for determining how and when to employ telework when considering the unique needs of its mission and employees,” spokesman Anthony Marucci said in an email.
But President Trump has expansive authority to close an agency, whether he declares a national emergency or not. Just 15 percent of the workforce works in the District region, and every state has a federal presence.
Officials are not publicly releasing details of their emergency plans as they try to balance transparency with alarmism. Some unions that represent federal employees, though, say they’ve had little communication from managers.
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“We’re hearing crickets,” said James Muhammad-Mason, a debt specialist at the Social Security Administration in Chicago, where several of the state’s coronavirus cases have been diagnosed. “People are concerned. I have a colleague taking care of an ill parent. I have kids. What if we get the virus and give it to them?”
Social Security’s top managers are at odds with many of its 60,000 employees across the country after canceling a six-year-old telework pilot program for 12,000 operations employees in November — then slashing it in multiple of other departments last month.
Vague public statements
In Seattle, Carlson says he’s fielding calls from managers whose staffs must report to the office, from weather forecasters to Secret Service agents. They’re part of the massive workforce with public-facing or high-security jobs — IRS call-center employees, passport processors, food-safety inspectors, shipbuilders, wildland firefighters, nurses caring for veterans, postal workers. They directly serve the public, every day.
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So far their agencies have issued only vague public statements about their welfare.
“We are working closely with the [Centers for Disease Control] and monitoring the situation, and we remain prepared to deal with contingencies under our continuity of government plans,” Mark Hinkle, a Social Security spokesman, said.
A TSA officer wears a protective face mask on his shift at Terminal B at Oakland International Airport in California on March 4. TSA employees have been told that they can wear N95 respirators or surgical masks for their own personal protections while a work, at their discretion. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)
A TSA officer wears a protective face mask on his shift at Terminal B at Oakland International Airport in California on March 4. TSA employees have been told that they can wear N95 respirators or surgical masks for their own personal protections while a work, at their discretion. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)
Other departments have canceled nonessential travel and meetings. Cleaning crews are disinfecting bathrooms and other public services more frequently than usual.
On Monday, the IRS played down concerns over disruptions to tax season. “Normal IRS operations are continuing, and we are seeing a strong, smooth filing season for the nation,” the agency said in a statement.
As remote work rises at U.S. companies, Trump is calling federal employees back to the office
Documents known as continuity of operations plans have guided federal emergency planners since the Cold War, when President Dwight Eisenhower issued the first measures to ensure the government could continue to function after a nuclear attack.
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After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, new blueprints evolved to protect the homeland from another terrorist attack, and eventually from flu pandemics.
They lay out how agencies would operate essential services with skeletal staffs and alternative work sites where agency leaders would go.
About 12 years ago, with broadband technology in most homes, telework became a key feature of the plans. But they have yet to be activated on a wide scale. The closest call was during the H1N1 pandemic of 2009, a novel influenza virus known as the swine flu. The government ramped up for a robust response, but no federal offices were affected.
“We were racing the clock,” recalled W. Craig Fugate, who ran the disaster relief agency for eight years during the Obama administration, “but we never got to the point of closing anything in government down.”
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The Trump administration, concerned that remote work was being abused, has pushed to strictly limit it. “A lot of people look at telework and think, it’s just some nice-to-have thing for employees,” said Jeffrey Neal, a former Homeland Security personnel chief who writes a blog on federal personnel policies.
“What they don’t talk about much is the emergency planning aspect of it,” Neal said. “It’s not like you can pull the trigger now and say, ‘Poof! We have a telework program.”
Not so simple
About 43 percent of federal employees were eligible to work from home in fiscal 2017, the last year for which data is available. The number has declined since then, but it’s unclear by how much.
With coronavirus planning, managers are realizing that shifting gears is not as simple as telling someone to power up their computer at home. Not everyone has broadband access at home — or a government-issued laptop that’s generally required to telework. Employees need access to agency networks. Some of their work contains sensitive material that can’t be exposed in a home setting.
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“Agencies will have a hard time retrofitting what they’ve been scaling down, and now they’re in the middle of a World Health Organization-designated pandemic,” said David Cann, director of field services and education at the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union representing federal workers.
Some D.C.-area House Democrats are so furious about the cuts that last week they introduced legislation to force the administration to reinstate telework where it has been curtailed.
Agencies have said little publicly about their workforce plans. The Department of Homeland Security announced last week that it had closed its Seattle field office for two weeks after an employee tested positive for coronavirus. But the agency declined to say how many employees were affected or could work remotely.
Then on Monday, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services told employees in an email that it was reopening a week early after professionally cleaning the office.
At Housing and Urban Development, some employees are resisting signing agreements because they don’t want to be required to work if colleagues who can’t telework get paid to stay home anyway, according to Ashaki Robinson Johns, president of AFGE Local 476, which represents HUD employees around Washington.
A senior HUD official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the coronavirus preparations, acknowledged that employees cannot be forced to sign a telework agreement.
About 2,300 scientists and other staff at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., have been on mandatory telework since Friday, a directive that followed a nationwide work-from-home test run for all employees.
Anyone who didn’t happen to bring their laptop home over the weekend was unable access their work, though.
As the virus spread in Seattle, employees at the EPA’s field office asked their managers last week to work from home full time until the infections abate but were told no: They could telework only once a week.
Kate Spaulding, an enforcement compliance officer, said she was told she would need a note from her doctor stating that she was a “vulnerable person” by the Centers for Disease Control’s definition.
“As a federal employee, I am being blocked from putting into place strategies that have been strongly suggested by my local government and health advisors,” she wrote in an email last week.
The office finally was cleared to telework last Friday “until further notice.”
Sarah Kaplan and Missy Ryan contributed to this report.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 11, 2020 11:15:24 GMT -5
SEC Institutes Telework-Only Thanks to Robust Remote Work Program
The Securities and Exchange Commission quickly implemented mandatory telework for D.C. workers to protect them from the potential spread of coronavirus, but unions say other agencies have been reluctant to support the practice.
ERICH WAGNER | MARCH 10, 2020 04:53 PM ET
TELEWORK
CORONAVIRUS
The Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday instructed employees at its Washington, D.C., headquarters to work remotely until further notice, after an employee began treatment for “respiratory symptoms.”
Although it is not yet clear whether the employee has tested positive for the novel coronavirus, officials said mandating telework is a precautionary measure.
“Even with increased telework, the SEC remains able and committed to fully executing its mission on behalf of investors, including monitoring market function and working closely with other regulators and market participants,” an SEC spokesperson said Tuesday.
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SEC’s quick adoption of telework for all D.C.-area employees comes as federal employee groups sound the alarm about a number of departments being slow to incorporate telework in their continuity of operations plans, particularly those agencies that have been at the forefront of cutbacks on the workplace flexibility.
On Tuesday, the Association of Administrative Law Judges, which represents around 1,300 ALJs at Social Security Administration hearing offices around the country, said the agency has rejected recommendations to encourage more telephonic hearings for Social Security disability benefits cases. The union said the measure could be helpful, particularly in light of the fact that applicants tend to skew older and have underlying health issues.
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The key to SEC’s ability, and willingness, to mandate telework is that the agency has long embraced the practice across presidential administrations. Telework was included in the National Treasury Employees Union’s first collective bargaining agreement with SEC in 2002, despite management’s initial opposition.
Each subsequent union contract resulted in expanded telework availability for employees. According to the latest contract, up to 25% of bargaining unit employees can work remotely anywhere between three and five days per week, depending on tenure. And according to the Office of Personnel Management’s most recent report on telework in the federal government, in fiscal 2017, fully 91% of SEC’s workforce participated in the program.
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Over the weekend, OPM issued another set of guidance to agencies to help them prep for the possibility of disruptions related to the coronavirus, which included encouraging agencies to set up ad-hoc telework agreements and alternative work schedules.
But it remains unclear whether agencies wary of telework will finally get on board. AALJ President Melissa McIntosh said that Social Security Administration officials merely told her that the agency would take her requests for expanded hearings by telephone “under advisement.”
“We emphatically urge the Social Security Administration to put the health of the American public first and immediately implement commonsense suggestions,” McIntosh said in a statement. “Many claimants in our hearing rooms and offices report they have compromised immunity and could be particularly at risk for the coronavirus. As administrative law judges, we take the health and safety of the claimants, representatives and our colleagues very seriously.”
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Post by kylearan on Mar 11, 2020 14:00:58 GMT -5
Some D.C.-area House Democrats are so furious about the cuts that last week they introduced legislation to force the administration to reinstate telework where it has been curtailed. House Democrats would be “so furious” if a lightbulb in their office burned out, and would try to find some way to blame the Honorable Donald Trump for it. |
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Post by rightspeech on Mar 11, 2020 14:18:28 GMT -5
Some D.C.-area House Democrats are so furious about the cuts that last week they introduced legislation to force the administration to reinstate telework where it has been curtailed. House Democrats would be “so furious” if a lightbulb in their office burned out, and would try to find some way to blame the Honorable Donald Trump for it. Next time you're gonna put honorable in front of Donald Trump can you give me a trigger warning please? 😂 |
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Synik
Full Member
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Post by Synik on Mar 11, 2020 14:31:28 GMT -5
Everyone really needs to take a deep breath and calm down. Decisions and preventive and ameliorative measures have to trickle down and, sure, we aren't thrilled with how quickly that is happening. OCALJ has to take direction from the DC, who has to take direction from the Commish, who presumably has to fall in line with other Agency heads, who may be dealing with messages that are changing daily, if not hourly. Uncertainty sucks. The virus is scary in its contagion but, for most of us, it will not be any scarier than the flu if we get it.
If you or someone in your family is immunocompromised, take special care. Otherwise, give TPTB a break. Sure, expanding telework would be great, but we still have to do business. Sure, telephone hearings might be an option, but there are due process considerations in the absence of a regulatory change. These are huge decisions affecting millions of federal employees, not to mention the public. I imagine Operations is even more anxious for further guidance, given that they have much more intensive public contact. Keep making good suggestions, like signs in the lobby, open communication with reps, liberal postponement policy, etc. But don't use this as an excuse to sow dissatisfaction and foment further conflict between management and the ALJ corps (and other staff, for that matter). Now is the time to be working together, not at cross purposes.
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Post by SPN Lifer on Mar 11, 2020 14:35:52 GMT -5
AALJ President Melissa McIntosh said that Social Security Administration officials merely told her that the agency would take her requests for expanded hearings by telephone “under advisement.” “We emphatically urge the Social Security Administration to put the health of the American public first and immediately implement commonsense suggestions,” McIntosh said in a statement. “ Many claimants in our hearing rooms and offices report they have compromised immunity and could be particularly at risk for the coronavirus. As administrative law judges, we take the health and safety of the claimants, representatives and our colleagues very seriously.” Many other claimants do not, and emphatically do not want to be denied their constitutional right to procedural due process. They do not want to give up their in-person hearings because of fears that do not affect them directly. |
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Post by nylawyer on Mar 11, 2020 14:53:27 GMT -5
There is no doubt a lot of overreaction going on, in this thread and in the real world as well.
But it is also inexplicable that the most that can be mustered at this time is wash your hands and stay home if you are sick (to employees only).
There are just so many easy things that can be done without disrupting operations but which would help protect everyone's health and move everyone towards being more ready if greater actions need to be taken.
A letter to every claimant with a pending hearing advising them that if they have travelled internationally, or have been in contact with someone who has done so, and who is having respiratory symptoms, can ask for either a phone hearing or an adjournment. Just common sense, and whatever minimal impact it may have by the handful of claimants who make the request is completely offset by the harm caused when hearing offices have to be closed for deep cleaning because someone comes in hacking up a lung but tells the front desk they didn't want to risk having their case dismissed. (And a sign in lobby advising the same thing)
Have telework eligible employees bring their computers home at night. It's what is done if the weather is threatening, why not now? You don't need a study from JHU to tell you to do that.
In areas that are getting hard hit, be proactive and have everyone working at home who can do so. Again, whatever harm this may cause pales compared to what happens when entire hearing offices end up in quarantine.
These are just basic things. Huge corporations (Google) are going so far as to send everyone home. Teams are playing in front of empty seats, costing them money, in order to avoid the risk of fans getting sick. Major universities are eliminating in person classes for the rest of the year and closing their campus. These are big decisions that these institutions were able to muster, it shouldn't be that hard to put up a friggin sign.
(And I agree that claimant's due process should not be sacrificed- if they want an in person hearing when it is deemed unsafe to have one, then adjourn the case. In any other context that would just happen automatically.)
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Post by bettercallsaul on Mar 11, 2020 15:11:55 GMT -5
I have a telework agreement and have started taking my laptop home between my office days. Even though we've received diddly-squat as far as plans and information from SSA, I have no doubt that the agency would cite to the recent OPM guidance memos as reasonable notice of possible office closure to deny weather and safety leave to any teleworker that doesn't have their laptop when the agency realizes that it's probably smart to implement telework full-time for most employees. I'm sure Saul is hunkered down right now, working out business continuity plans from somewhere remote in the Hamptons or south Florida.
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Post by smokingalj on Mar 11, 2020 15:15:24 GMT -5
Everyone really needs to take a deep breath and calm down. Decisions and preventive and ameliorative measures have to trickle down and, sure, we aren't thrilled with how quickly that is happening. OCALJ has to take direction from the DC, who has to take direction from the Commish, who presumably has to fall in line with other Agency heads, who may be dealing with messages that are changing daily, if not hourly. Uncertainty sucks. The virus is scary in its contagion but, for most of us, it will not be any scarier than the flu if we get it. If you or someone in your family is immunocompromised, take special care. Otherwise, give TPTB a break. Sure, expanding telework would be great, but we still have to do business. Sure, telephone hearings might be an option, but there are due process considerations in the absence of a regulatory change. These are huge decisions affecting millions of federal employees, not to mention the public. I imagine Operations is even more anxious for further guidance, given that they have much more intensive public contact. Keep making good suggestions, like signs in the lobby, open communication with reps, liberal postponement policy, etc. But don't use this as an excuse to sow dissatisfaction and foment further conflict between management and the ALJ corps (and other staff, for that matter). Now is the time to be working together, not at cross purposes. The powers that be have been throwing ALJ's under the bus for a long time now They have no credibility |
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Post by Pixie on Mar 11, 2020 16:09:48 GMT -5
Let's not get personal. Discussion is healthy, and spirited discussion is also healthy, but let's not get too much more into politics or personal comments. Pixie
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Post by seaside on Mar 11, 2020 16:55:29 GMT -5
Yesterday, here in Massachusetts, the Governor declared a state of emergency. My husband’s company has directed all employees in the Boston office to telework full time, for the foreseeable future. In that light, I have decided to work longer days to earn credit hours, and use those hours to take off the one day a week I am scheduled to be at my ODS. TPTB have made it clear long before COVID-19 appeared on the scene that they do not care one bit about the welfare of their workforce. I’m not waiting for them to tell me how best to protect my health. If management has a problem with my plan, they’ll get a note from my physician. After 21 years with this agency as a very hard working and high producing AA and SAA for the past 11 years, I find their approach to this situation incompetent at best, and deliberately spiteful at worst.
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Post by arkstfan on Mar 11, 2020 17:01:30 GMT -5
I'm going to be showing up and doing hearings as long as we let people in the building and if the claimant wants a phone hearing because it's getting bad, then I'll be inclined to grant them.
The only thing different for me will be that if I feel lousy and have a low grade fever, I'm staying home. Before a 99 or 99.2 I'd take some aspirin or Tylenol and go in. No chance now because the risk is too much to assume it's just my allergies giving me fits.
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Post by christina on Mar 11, 2020 17:22:15 GMT -5
I'm going to be showing up and doing hearings as long as we let people in the building and if the claimant wants a phone hearing because it's getting bad, then I'll be inclined to grant them. The only thing different for me will be that if I feel lousy and have a low grade fever, I'm staying home. Before a 99 or 99.2 I'd take some aspirin or Tylenol and go in. No chance now because the risk is too much to assume it's just my allergies giving me fits. Yes this is a bad time to be allergy prone. Is it the blasted spring allergies acting up or .... worse? High five to my fellow allergies sufferer🙂 |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 11, 2020 17:31:12 GMT -5
If you or someone in your family is immunocompromised, take special care. Otherwise, give TPTB a break. Sure, expanding telework would be great, but we still have to do business. Sure, telephone hearings might be an option, but there are due process considerations in the absence of a regulatory change. These are huge decisions affecting millions of federal employees, not to mention the public. I imagine Operations is even more anxious for further guidance, given that they have much more intensive public contact. Keep making good suggestions, like signs in the lobby, open communication with reps, liberal postponement policy, etc. But don't use this as an excuse to sow dissatisfaction and foment further conflict between management and the ALJ corps (and other staff, for that matter). Now is the time to be working together, not at cross purposes. Ma’am, where have you been? Have you been working at the same OHO where TPTB have accused their entire work force, especially its ALJs of Malfeasance. You mean give them the benefit of the doubt— the benefit they have refused to give us? To treat us with disdain? People follow leaders whom they know have their best interests in mind. In some places they will follow such leaders off a cliff. But not in our organization. I cannot tell you how much damage those declarations from our chief judges filed in support of removing our independence, telework and transfers have done. So no one is formenting further conflict with management they have managed to do that on their own. |
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Post by seaside on Mar 11, 2020 18:30:57 GMT -5
In keeping with Pixie’s advice to keep this discussion civil and non-personal, I’m going to let that comment go.
Wait. No I’m not. My promotion to SAA was not a “blessing.” When I was hired, there was not even a remote chance of ever getting a SAA position. Yet, I served 4 years as a GS, served on many training cadres, volunteered as a mentor and have served a number of other details over the years (without any bump in pay) to earn my promotion. I did all those things to expand my knowledge and serve my agency because I truly enjoy what I do (although the current regime has really challenged that). I was thrilled when I was promoted, but it was not a gift. I earned it. I realize there are some who didn’t, but I did. And I’m thankful, but my position/pay/benefits does not in any way invalidate my ire over management’s behavior. It’s as if you’re saying I shouldn’t complain because I “have it better” than you. That sounds just like something management would say.
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Post by nappyloxs on Mar 11, 2020 19:08:30 GMT -5
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Post by SPN Lifer on Mar 11, 2020 19:27:37 GMT -5
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Post by nappyloxs on Mar 11, 2020 19:32:12 GMT -5
There is no doubt a lot of overreaction going on, in this thread and in the real world as well. But it is also inexplicable that the most that can be mustered at this time is wash your hands and stay home if you are sick (to employees only). There are just so many easy things that can be done without disrupting operations but which would help protect everyone's health and move everyone towards being more ready if greater actions need to be taken. A letter to every claimant with a pending hearing advising them that if they have travelled internationally, or have been in contact with someone who has done so, and who is having respiratory symptoms, can ask for either a phone hearing or an adjournment. Just common sense, and whatever minimal impact it may have by the handful of claimants who make the request is completely offset by the harm caused when hearing offices have to be closed for deep cleaning because someone comes in hacking up a lung but tells the front desk they didn't want to risk having their case dismissed. (And a sign in lobby advising the same thing) Have telework eligible employees bring their computers home at night. It's what is done if the weather is threatening, why not now? You don't need a study from JHU to tell you to do that. In areas that are getting hard hit, be proactive and have everyone working at home who can do so. Again, whatever harm this may cause pales compared to what happens when entire hearing offices end up in quarantine. These are just basic things. Huge corporations (Google) are going so far as to send everyone home. Teams are playing in front of empty seats, costing them money, in order to avoid the risk of fans getting sick. Major universities are eliminating in person classes for the rest of the year and closing their campus. These are big decisions that these institutions were able to muster, it shouldn't be that hard to put up a friggin sign. (And I agree that claimant's due process should not be sacrificed- if they want an in person hearing when it is deemed unsafe to have one, then adjourn the case. In any other context that would just happen automatically.) SSA’s Coronavirus policy is basically “case-by-case basis.” I wouldn’t recommend people bring laptop home every night. Why? Do you really anticipate an entire office in a non-hot zone to close for the day? OHO leaves such decision to the regions. OPM’s weather and safety guidance encourages agencies to follow regional FEB’s recommendations. Some SSA offices will close at the drop of a snowflake while others offices could get 5-ft of snow that close all local government and other federal agencies and SSA will stay open. SSA doesn’t care about due process, employee safety, or public safety. Washing hands and Purell will only go so far. The second you touch anything, you are exposed again. I understand the balancing of the mission and safety; however, as you mentioned, there is no good if all employees in an office are quarantined. If SSA were to encourage employees to take laptop homes every night, then they might as well implement full-time telework. IMHO, it wpuld be better to postpone all hearings for 2-4 weeks and implement telework during that period. Work with the union to reschedule, all lost hearings over following 2 months. There is sufficient portable work. Writing and Edit would be exhausted, but future cases would actually be fully reviewed and developedfor a change. (Dreaming). |
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Post by nylawyer on Mar 11, 2020 19:44:10 GMT -5
Absolutely I can see an entire office closing.
Office gets a call late in day from a rep apologizing and saying just found out the claimant who had appeared that day has tested positive. I would absolutely expect the office to close at that point for deep cleaning.
You can't realistically make up the next 2-4 weeks worth of hearings in 2 months. Plenty of ALJs will have vacations scheduled in April of May, and may have even overloaded the next month because of that.
Moreover, the reps won't necessarily be available on the dates the ALJ is.
The thing is, I can understand why the agency might see it as too soon to be talking about cancelling hearings across the board. What's frustrating is that far smaller, simpler things arent being done either.
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