(Bloomberg) -- Allies of President-elect Donald Trump criticized a deal to extend hybrid work options for some federal staff until 2029, saying the agreement between the Social Security Administration and its union undermines return-to-office efforts.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican who is expected to chair the Senate’s committee on labor and health in the next Congress, called out the contract deal, which was first reported by Bloomberg. “It’s time for federal employees to return to the office,” he wrote in a Wednesday post on the X social media platform, casting blame on the Biden administration.
His comments echoed those of Kentucky Republican Rep. James Comer, chair of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, who urged Congress to pass proposed legislation forcing federal workers back to their offices in an earlier post.
As one of his last official acts, President Joe Biden’s just-departed Social Security commissioner, Martin O’Malley, signed off on a revised contract with the American Federation of Government Employees, a union representing 42,000 of the independent agency’s workers, according to a message to its members viewed by Bloomberg.
“This deal will secure not just telework for SSA employees, but will secure staffing levels through prevention of higher attrition, which in turn will secure the ability of the agency to serve the public,” AFGE chapter president Rich Couture wrote in his message to members. The union declined to elaborate.
A Social Security spokesperson confirmed the agreement, noting that managers can still make temporary changes based on operational needs or performance issues. O’Malley could not be reached for comment.
In-office requirements range from two to five days per week, varying by job, according to people familiar who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Hedge fund manager and Trump donor Bill Ackman called the SSA contract “untenable” in a post on X. SpaceX and Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk, who has pledged to help the incoming president slash government spending, reposted Ackman’s message with a pair of exclamation points.
A Trump task force headed by Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy that calls itself the “Department of Government Efficiency” also noted the deal in a post on X, stoking thousands of replies critical of the move. Musk and Ramaswamy have said they plan to cull the federal workforce and eliminate work-from-home policies.
The Trump transition team has declined to comment directly on the union contracts. But a representative for the transition said the DOGE task force will target federal red tape and spending, and seek to restructure federal agencies.
Ramaswamy, in his own social media post, termed the agency’s move “illegitimate” and hinted it could be rescinded. “All new proclamations made by executive fiat can be reversed by executive fiat,” he wrote.
Organized labor represents over a million federal government employees, and AFGE is the largest federal worker union. Legally binding union contracts, which dictate terms on working conditions, can be amended during, or extended beyond, their existing timeframes by mutual agreement.
(Updates from second paragraph with additonal Trump ally comments.)
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