A third-party arbitrator is ordering the Department of Health and Human Services to walk back its return-to-office mandate for thousands of employees represented by one of its unions.

Arbitrator Michael J. Falvo ruled on Monday that HHS must “rescind the return-to-office directive,” and must immediately reinstate remote work and telework agreements for members of the National Treasury Employees Union.

HHS rescinded those workplace flexibility agreements early last year, after President Donald Trump ordered federal employees to return to the office full-time.

Falvo found that HHS committed an unfair labor practice by unilaterally terminating telework and remote agreements, without regard to its five-year collective bargaining agreement with NTEU. The labor contract, which covers 2023 through 2028, states the agency can only terminate telework and remote work agreements “for cause.” That includes emergency situations and cases when an employee falls short of a “fully satisfactory” performance rating.

The ruling will impact thousands of HHS employees represented by NTEU. Its members include employees at the Food and Drug Administration, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the Administration for Children and Families, the Administration on Community Living, the Health Resources and Services Administration, the National Center for Health Statistics and the HHS Office of the Secretary.

Falvo is also ordering HHS to post a signed notice, “admitting that the agency violated the statute by repudiating the collective bargaining agreement.” The arbitrator wrote that his ruling does not limit NTEU from “seeking additional remedies to the extent permitted by law.”

HHS officials argued that Trump’s return-to-office presidential memorandum supersedes the collective bargaining agreement. But the 1978 Federal Services Labor-Management Relations Statute makes it an unfair labor practice for an agency “to enforce any rule or regulation … which is in conflict with any applicable collective bargaining agreement if the agreement was in effect before the rule or regulation was prescribed.”

According to Falvo, the Federal Labor Relations Authority set a precedent in previous labor disputes that a presidential memorandum “is not a governmentwide rule or regulation that the employer is obligated by law to implement immediately upon issuance.”

“These cases compel the conclusion that the agency breached the agreement and violated the statute,” he wrote.

The arbitrator decided Trump’s return-to-office memo does not override telework and remote work protections outlined in NTEU’s collective bargaining agreement. HHS did not respond to a request for comment. NTEU declined to comment.

NTEU Chapter 282, which covers FDA headquarters employees, told members in an email that HHS is likely to appeal the arbitrator’s decision and has 30 days to do so. The union’s message states, “NTEU will push the agency to accept the ruling and restore your rights without delay.”

“This is a significant win that reaffirms that telework and remote work rights negotiated in a term contract cannot be unilaterally taken away,” NTEU Chapter 282 told members.

More than a year into the second Trump administration, several recent exceptions to its return-to-office policy have emerged.

The Labor Department’s Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs recently told employees that some of its employees will be eligible for remote work, because the agency is “extremely challenged” covering rent expenses for a fully in-office workforce.

Meanwhile, a second arbitrator ruled that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services “violated statutory obligations” to bargain with the American Federation of Government Employees over implementation of the administration’s return-to-office directive.

The arbitrator in this dispute determined CMS wasn’t required to negotiate with the union over the administration’s return-to-office mandate, but did have an obligation to ensure implementation complied with its collective bargaining agreement with AFGE.

The arbitrator ordered CMS to meet and negotiate with AFGE over the “effects of the implementation of the directive on work/life balance of employees.”

Trump touted his return-to-office mandate at a White House press briefing on Tuesday, where he looked back on the accomplishments of his first year in office.. Trump told reporters that when he took office last year, “we had so many of our federal workers who wouldn’t come into work.”

“We don’t want them sitting in their home, on their bed, working. We want them in an office that we’re paying for in Washington, D.C., or wherever it may be. And we’ve largely taken care of that mess,” Trump said. “I guarantee you they’re out on the ballfields. I guarantee you they’re out playing golf. And you can’t run a country or a company that way.”

Trump’s presidential memorandum directed agencies to terminate remote work and telework agreements, but also stated that the return-to-office mandate must be “implemented consistent with applicable law.”

“Reasonable persons could have different notions whether a presidential memorandum (or an executive order) is such a ‘rule or regulation’ under ‘applicable law.’ On January 20, 2025, what ‘applicable law’ required was not a matter of first impression,” Falvo wrote.

NTEU filed a grievance against HHS last February, after the agency issued a directive requiring all bargaining unit employees to report to the office on a full-time basis.

Union officials argued that HHS refused to negotiate with NTEU before the return-to-office memo took effect, and would agree to “post-implementation bargaining.”

HHS officials denied the grievance and told the union that an agency head “retains the statutory right to determine overall telework levels and to exclude positions from telework eligibility.”

Christina Ballance, the executive director of the agency’s National Labor and Employee Relations Office, told the arbitrator that HHS “was obligated to comply with the presidential memorandum.”

“Ultimately, the president is our chief, and if he directs that employees return to offices in person, the agency is required to do so,” Ballance said in her testimony.

HHS officials rejected NTEU’s claims that it terminated all telework and remote work agreements. They said the agency still allows situational and ad-hoc telework, as well as workplace flexibilities for military spouses and reasonable accommodations for employees with disabilities.

But Federal News Network first reported last month that a new HHS policy restricts employees with disabilities from using telework as an interim accommodation, while the agency processes their reasonable accommodation request.

HHS is also centralizing the processing of reasonable accommodation requests on behalf of its component agencies. As a result, it is inheriting a backlog of requests that HHS officials expect will take about six to eight months to review.

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Nearly a year after President Donald Trump directed nearly all federal employees to return to the office full-time, new exceptions to the policy have emerged.

An agency within the Labor Department is allowing some of its employees to work remotely. At the Department of Health and Human Services, an arbitrator is directing one of its agencies to consult with one of its unions over more exemptions to the in-office mandate.

A recent memo from the Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs (OWCP) states that some of its employees will be eligible for remote work later this month.

OWCP Deputy Director Douglas Pennington told employees in the memo that, as the agency “vigorously implemented” Trump’s mandate for a full-time return to office last year, “we determined that OWCP will be extremely challenged to cover rent expenses.”

According to the Jan. 6 memo, the Labor Department will allow “100% remote work” for OWCP employees who perform adjudicatory work and perform payment processing work.

Pennington wrote that while most of the agency’s positions benefit from in-person collaboration, “certain OWCP positions do not engage in collaborative interactions, but benefit from focused time free of distractions, and therefore would benefit from remote work and allow a reduction in rent expenses.”

Eligible employees will be able to request full-time remote work starting Jan. 26. If employees are not approved for remote work, they must continue to show up to the office full-time. The memo states that increased telework “is not an option.”

Pennington wrote that allowing a subset of agency employees to work remotely, while having the rest of the workforce in the office full-time, is the “most cost-effective way to accomplish a reduction in rent expenses and continue performing OWCP’s mission.”

Meanwhile, a third-party arbitrator is directing the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to meet with the American Federation of Government Employees to discuss exemptions to the administration’s return-to-office mandate.

The arbitrator, Timothy Buckalew, wrote in his opinion that CMS “was not required to negotiate over return to in-person work,” but found that the agency “violated statutory obligations to bargain with the union over the implementation of the work in-person directive.”

Buckalew found that Trump’s return-to-office presidential memorandum (PM) allowed remote work to continue in some limited cases, including medical need.

However, the arbitrator determined CMS has not made any exceptions to its return-to-office policy.

“For reasons not apparent in the record, agency management declined to use the discretion allowed in the PM to make exemptions to the wholesale return to work or to submit the issues of impacts to bargaining as required by law as protected in the PM,” Buckalew wrote.

HHS has recently set new restrictions on telework as a reasonable accommodation for employees with disabilities.

The arbitrator is ordering CMS to meet and negotiate with AFGE over the “effects of the implementation of the directive on work/life of employees.”

According to Buckalew, AFGE Local 192 President Anita Marcel Autrey stated that CMS “unilaterally repudiated” parts of the union’s collective bargaining agreement, and that implementation of the agency’s return-to-office policy was “inconsistent and erratic.”

Autrey told the arbitrator that CMS employees in Chicago and San Francisco have not fully returned to the office because of a lack of office space.

Meanwhile, about 60 financial management employees were granted an exemption to keep working remotely because their work was considered essential to a new budget bill.

About 90% of CMS employees had telework agreements before the second Trump administration.

Donna O’Dowd, director of the workforce compliance division of the CMS Office of Human Capital, told the arbitrator that the presidential memo was a governmentwide rule that “left the agency with no discretion but to follow such directives.”

Federal News Network has reached out to OWCP and CMS for comment.

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A federal judge has blocked the Transportation Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security in their latest attempt to dissolve TSA’s union agreement.

In a Jan. 15 ruling, U.S. District Judge Jamal Whitehead granted an emergency motion to prohibit TSA from eliminating a collective bargaining agreement covering approximately 47,000 airport security screeners. TSA had been planning to dissolve the CBA effective Jan. 18.

The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents transportation security officers under the CBA, celebrated the ruling.

“TSA officers – many of whom are veterans – are patriotic public servants who swore an oath to protect the safety of the traveling public and to ensure that another horrific attack like September 11 never happens again,” AFGE National President Everett Kelley said in a statement. “The administration’s repeated efforts to strip these workers of a voice in their working conditions should concern every person who steps foot in an airport.”

The ruling is the latest development in the Trump administration’s effort to eliminate TSA union rights.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem first moved to eliminate TSA’s union last March. AFGE sued to block that effort, and in June, the court issued a preliminary injunction that prohibited TSA from moving forward with eliminating TSO union rights while the court case played out.

But in September, Noem signed a separate determination that directed TSA to strip security screeners of union rights and eliminate the CBA. DHS and TSA did not announce the new determination until early December. 

TSA argued that the determination was based on a new analysis of the costs associated with the union agreement.

In Whitehead’s latest ruling, however, he pointedly criticized TSA’s latest attempt to eliminate the union agreement. He wrote that officials “do not cite, quote, or otherwise engage with the operative language” in the preliminary injunction, which prohibits TSA and DHS from denying AFGE and TSO’s “any and all rights and/or working conditions guaranteed in the 2024 CBA.”

“The question before the court is straightforward: does defendants’ planned implementation of the September Noem Determination violate the existing preliminary Injunction? The answer is plainly yes,” Whitehead wrote.

He directed TSA to notify bargaining unit TSO’s that the Noem determination will not take effect on Jan. 18, “the 2024 CBA remains applicable and binding, and the currently pending grievances and arbitrations submitted under the 2024 CBA will continue to be processed.”

The case is still scheduled to go to trial in September 2026, absent any new developments or updates.

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Bipartisan lawmakers are seeking to secure a 35% federal pay raise for correctional officers at the Bureau of Prisons, in an effort to address longstanding staffing shortages across the agency.

The Federal Correctional Officer Paycheck Protection Act, which both House and Senate lawmakers introduced this week, would implement a 35% increase to the base pay rates for BOP correctional officers in the 0007 job series, as well as certain correctional officers on various other government pay scales.

“Persistent and often dangerous staffing shortages at federal prisons nationwide cause safety concerns for BOP personnel and incarcerated individuals alike,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), one of the bill’s original cosponsors, said in a statement. “Our bill will help to ensure that staff within our federal prisons are paid adequately for the critical work they do across this country.”

A bipartisan companion bill in the House comes from Reps. Rob Bresnahan (R-Pa.) and Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), who said that pay rates for correctional officers fall short of other similar federal law enforcement personnel. In turn, that leads to low staffing levels, coupled with excessive use of overtime to try to compensate for the vacancies.

“This strains workforce morale, disrupts inmate programming and creates unsafe conditions inside Bureau of Prisons facilities,” Bresnahan said in a statement.

The new bill comes shortly after BOP correctional officers received a 3.8% federal pay raise, as part of President Donald Trump’s orders for a larger 2026 pay increase for certain law enforcement personnel.

The American Federation of Government Employees said it “appreciates” the 3.8% raise for law enforcement, including BOP correctional officers. But AFGE added that for the BOP, “the one-time pay bump simply isn’t enough to make up for decades of pay disparity.”

Brandy Moore White, national president of the AFGE Council of Prison Locals, expressed support for the new legislation.

“This reform is critical. It will align BOP compensation with federal law enforcement standards, stem the loss of experienced officers and attract qualified applicants in an increasingly competitive hiring market,” Moore White said in a statement. “Most importantly, it will help restore safe staffing levels across federal institutions, reduce violence, protect staff and ensure mission readiness.”

The introduction of the bill also comes shortly after BOP Director William K. Marshall III announced upcoming retention-based pay incentives for certain correctional officers and other BOP positions seeing consistent staffing shortages. The new pay incentives, which are expected to take effect in February, will give some agency employees a temporary pay boost between 5% and 25%, depending on their job position and geographic location.

For years, BOP has attempted to stave off poor recruitment and retention levels by using pay-based recruitment and retention incentives as a way to try to keep federal correctional officers in their jobs. But because the pay incentives are a temporary fix, many have advocated for a larger and permanent federal pay raise for the BOP workforce.

A Justice Department Office of Inspector General report from February 2024 said the BOP workforce uses excessive overtime hours and staff “augmentation” to try to compensate for persistent understaffing. But the OIG wrote that those factors “overburdened existing staff and potentially contributed to staff fatigue, sleep deprivation, decreased vigilance and inattentiveness to duty.”

Recent federal workforce data also shows that BOP correctional officers’ attrition levels over the last year have resulted in 1,700 officers leaving their jobs, including more than 1,100 correctional officers who have either quit or retired since January 2025. Over the same time period, the agency had about 1,200 new officers join the ranks, resulting in a net loss of nearly 500 correctional officers over the last year.

Under the new legislation, the 35% pay increase would initially last for five years. Within the last six months of that timeframe, the bill would require the Justice Department OIG to assess the progress BOP has made toward improving recruitment and retention levels, as well as reducing overtime hours and staff augmentation. If that OIG assessment shows BOP has made progress as a result of the federal pay raise, the 35% salary boost would remain in place.

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The Department of Health and Human Services is rescinding layoffs for employees who recently worked at a workplace safety agency within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Last April, HHS sent reduction-in-force notices to about 1,000 employees at the CDC’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), which focuses on workplace safety and health standards. Those layoffs targeted about 90% of NIOSH’s staff.

HHS reinstated hundreds of NIOSH employees about a month after sending layoff notices. But according to the American Federation of Government Employees, the department “reversed course completely” on Tuesday, and revoked all layoff notices sent to NIOSH employees.

HHS Press Secretary Emily Hilliard confirmed the department rescinded all RIF notices sent to NIOSH employees. In a statement, she said that “under Secretary Kennedy’s leadership, the nation’s critical public health functions remain intact and effective.”

“The Trump Administration is committed to protecting essential services — whether it’s supporting coal miners and firefighters through NIOSH, safeguarding public health through lead prevention, or researching and tracking the most prevalent communicable diseases. Enhancing the health and well-being of all Americans remains our top priority,” Hilliard said.

Last May, after pressure from unions and bipartisan pushback from lawmakers, HHS partially reversed course and reinstated 328 of the 1,000 terminated NIOSH employees. The reinstatements brought back NIOSH employees working in coal mining research programs in Ohio and West Virginia, as well as employees working in the agency’s World Trade Center Health Program, which supports 9/11 first responders.

Micah Niemeier-Walsh, a NIOSH employee and vice president of AFGE Local 3840, said NIOSH employees and unions “have been fighting relentlessly” to full reinstatement of terminated staff.

“We still have a long road ahead of us. We have a lot of rebuilding to do,” she said. “It’s going to take some time to get projects moving again.”

Niemeier-Walsh said laid-off NIOSH employees have been on paid administrative leave for about nine months, preventing hundreds of federal scientists from carrying out their research. Ongoing lawsuits have prevented some agencies from finalizing employee layoffs.

“My coworkers are so dedicated, and they would rather have just been working. They didn’t know, every day, am I going to get terminated tomorrow? It wasn’t nine months of a vacation. It was nine months of limbo and uncertainty,” she said.

In a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing last May, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), the chairwoman of the labor, health and human services, education, and related agencies subcommittee, said she was “pleased” with the agency’s partial reversal of the RIF at NIOSH, but called on HHS to reinstate even more NIOSH employees.

“While your action last week was a good step, there are still other divisions within NIOSH with specialized staff who conduct essential, unique work,” Capito told HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. during the hearing. “I support the president’s vision to right-size our government, but … I don’t think eliminating NIOSH programs will accomplish that goal.”

Even after the partial reinstatements, NIOSH employees said most of the agency’s programs were still too understaffed to fully function.

NIOSH employees represented by AFGE have met with lawmakers and held rallies, calling for the rest of their colleagues to be brought back on the job.

AFGE National President Everett Kelley said in a statement Wednesday that NIOSH is a “small but vital federal agency” that helps prevent employee injuries, illnesses and deaths at workplaces nationwide.

“The administration’s attempt to lay off nearly every NIOSH worker was shameful and illegal, considering that much of NIOSH’s work is required by law,” Kelley said.

Last October, HHS sent RIF notices to nearly 1,000 employees — including some CDC employees — during the recent government shutdown. But those RIFs were put on hold by a federal judge’s order. The current continuing resolution will block those layoffs at least through Jan. 30.

The post HHS reinstates all laid-off employees at workplace safety agency NIOSH first appeared on Federal News Network.

Hundreds of federal employees, union members and other workforce advocates gathered in front of the U.S. Capitol building Wednesday afternoon to urge the passage of legislation that would restore their collective bargaining rights.

After the Protect America’s Workforce Act cleared the House in December, federal unions have been pushing over the last several weeks for the Senate to take up the bill’s companion legislation.

The bill, if enacted, would restore collective bargaining for an estimated two-thirds of the federal workforce. In effect, it would reverse two executive orders President Donald Trump signed last year that called on most executive branch agencies to terminate their federal union contracts on the grounds of “national security.”

“It’s about ensuring federal workers are treated with dignity and respect. Collective bargaining rights ensure our jobs and protect frontline workers whose voice in the service matters, and it needs to be heard,” Terry Scott, national executive vice president of the National Treasury Employees Union and longtime IRS revenue officer, said at the union rally Wednesday. “It’s a path towards accountability in government. It’s a path towards ensuring that the civil service recruits and retains top talent to keep America moving.”

In December, House lawmakers voted 231-195 to pass the Protect America’s Workforce Act. The entire Democratic Caucus, along with 20 Republicans, voted in favor of the legislation. The bill’s passage came after a discharge petition reached the required signature threshold to force a House floor vote.

The Senate companion bill, first introduced in September and led by Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), has gained the support of the entire Democratic Caucus. Two Republicans, Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), are also co-sponsors of the bill.

At Wednesday’s federal union rally, Van Hollen criticized the president’s broad move to strip collective bargaining rights from federal employees at a majority of agencies.

“This was just a sham and a farce to deny patriotic federal employees the opportunity to participate in a union, to protect their rights,” Van Hollen said. “By protecting the federal workforce, we also protect the American people and the good work that you do on behalf of the American people.”

In March 2025, Trump ordered most agencies to cancel their contracts with federal unions, on the grounds that those agencies work primarily in national security. The president signed a second executive order last August, expanding the number of agencies instructed to bar federal unions from bargaining on behalf of employees.

Randy Erwin, national president of the National Federation of Federal Employees, said Trump’s action “blatantly violates the law.”

“It is by far the biggest attack that we have ever seen on collective bargaining rights in the history of this country. We cannot allow it to continue,” Erwin said Wednesday at the rally. “Unions have been bargaining in the federal sector since the Kennedy administration, and there are no examples of that compromising our national security.”

In addition to the legislation, multiple federal unions have sued the Trump administration over the pair of executive orders. One lawsuit from the American Federation of Government Employees argues that the administration took an overly broad interpretation of agencies that work primarily in national security, and that many of the agencies impacted by Trump’s orders have nothing to do with national security.

Following AFGE’s lawsuit, a federal judge last April blocked the administration from enforcing the executive order. After an appeals court later overturned that decision, several agencies moved forward with “de-recognizing” their unions and rescinding collective bargaining agreements.

As a result, recent federal workforce data shows that a significant percentage of federal employees has lost the ability to join a bargaining unit over the last year. Governmentwide, bargaining unit eligibility has dropped 18%, from 56% to 38%, according to data from the Office of Personnel Management.

At the same time, there has been a 20% increase in ineligibility for union representation. About half of the federal workforce is currently not eligible to join a bargaining unit. Another 12% of federal employees are eligible for union representation, but have not officially joined a bargaining unit.

The post Federal unions, employees urge Senate to take up bill restoring collective bargaining first appeared on Federal News Network.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons is offering retention-based federal pay incentives to correctional officers and other critical frontline positions, in an attempt to address longstanding understaffing across the agency.

The upcoming retention bonuses will take effect in February, according to an all-staff message BOP Director William K. Marshall III sent Monday.

“These retention incentives are about keeping the experience in our institutions while we throw everything we have to deliver reinforcements and bring relief to an exhausted workforce,” Marshall wrote in the Jan. 5 email, viewed by Federal News Network.

The BOP for years has faced significant workforce challenges, including persistent understaffing and high use of overtime. The Government Accountability Office once again named the management of the federal prison system as an item on its 2025 high-risk list, in part due to the workforce issues at BOP.

Retention incentives are one way federal agencies can try to address challenges with keeping employees in their jobs — and it’s a tactic that BOP has used for years. Generally, agencies provide the pay incentives to federal employees in positions that are considered hard to fill. The pay increases are distributed over a certain time period and up to a certain percentage, as long as the employee meets the incentive requirements.

“We will continue to pursue special salary rates for hard to fill positions where they make sense and will have the greatest impact,” Marshall wrote.

Using retention incentives is a temporary pay fix — federal regulations state that agencies must review the bonuses annually to determine if they are still needed. Agencies are required to terminate incentives when the conditions that warranted the incentives in the first place no longer apply.

Because the incentives are susceptible to being revoked, some have advocated for larger pay fixes for the BOP workforce. A representative with the American Federation of Government Employees, speaking anonymously for fear of professional retaliation, called for the implementation of an across-the-board, permanent federal pay increase for all frontline BOP staff.

“While the retention incentives are appreciated, it’s doing nothing for us long-term. You’re attracting them, but you’re not retaining them. Within two years, they could say, ‘I’ve met my requirement,’ and then leave us to go to a different agency,” the union representative told Federal News Network. “We have to fix the pay structure to incentivize people to stay.”

The new incentives also come as BOP correctional officers are expected to receive a 3.8% federal pay raise, as part of President Donald Trump’s orders for a larger 2026 pay increase for certain law enforcement personnel.

But the AFGE official said that leaves other critical BOP positions, such as psychologists and nurses, with the smaller 1% raise — something that will likely sow tension among the frontline employees.

“The agency is putting a divide in our workforce — a lot of people in the field are just genuinely frustrated that the agency would take one group and pay them a certain amount and not the others,” the union official said. “This causes such a wedge.”

The upcoming federal pay incentives are a departure from BOP’s actions last March, when the agency reduced, and in some cases fully removed, retention incentives for certain correctional officers and other BOP staff. At the time, BOP said the decision to remove the incentives was made in an effort to address budget shortfalls. But the resulting pay cuts led some employees to leave their jobs.

Now, the value of the upcoming retention pay incentives depends on the employee’s position and location, as well as the staffing levels at that specific BOP facility. BOP defined three “tiers” of institutions, based on staffing levels, to determine the size of the bonus.

“Tier 1 and tier 2 institutions represent our most critically understaffed locations and will receive the strongest support,” Marshall wrote.

For instance, correctional officers at “tier 1” institutions will receive a 10% pay bonus, while correctional officers at “tier 2” institutions will receive a 5% pay bonus.

Meanwhile, all mid-level practitioners and psychologists — regardless of location — will receive a 25% retention bonus, the BOP email shows. All lieutenants, registered nurses and special education teachers will receive a 10% bonus.

Any BOP employees who are eligible for a new retention incentive, but who are already receiving an incentive, will maintain only the higher of the two values, at least until the end of September.

In his all-staff message, Marshall encouraged more BOP staff members to become correctional officers, saying that “those who choose that path will be eligible for the same special salary rates and location-based incentives while gaining the critical skills necessary to strengthen the security of our institutions.”

The post Bureau of Prisons seeks to address low retention with federal pay incentives first appeared on Federal News Network.

• The Department of Homeland Security has agreed to push back by a week plans to dissolve a union agreement for airport screeners as part of an ongoing court case. The Transportation Security Administration had planned to eliminate the collective bargaining agreement for TSA staff on January 11. But the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents TSA staff, is seeking an emergency order to block that action. TSA says it will delay the effective date to January 18 to allow for arguments over the motion. The judge in the case had already issued a preliminary injunction blocking an earlier attempt by TSA to eliminate the union agreement.
  (AFGE AFL-CIO v. Noem - Court Listener)
• The Federal Emergency Management Agency this week awarded $250 million to 11 states and the National Capital region under a counter-unmanned aircraft system grant program. The states are all hosting FIFA World Cup matches next summer. The grants are intended to help them defend against unauthorized drone activity. The C-UAS Grant Program was established with $500 million from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. FEMA says the remaining $250 million will be distributed across all U.S. states and territories next year.
  (FEMA awards $250 million to secure U.S. skies ahead of FIFA World Cup - Department of Homeland Security)
• The Trump administration’s use of paid administrative leave is coming under scrutiny. Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility is urging the Government Accountability Office to investigate the situation. PEER officials say the leave used within the deferred resignation program was wasteful and unlawful. Despite a limit of 10 admin leave days per year, thousands of feds who took the DRP spent months on paid leave. PEER estimates that the DRP cost about $10 billion in taxpayer money.
  (Comments on Trump administration use of administrative leave - Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility)
• The Office of Personnel Management is addressing concerns from Congress over retirement processing delays. In a letter to House Democrats, OPM Director Scott Kupor touted a new digital system that he says is streamlining retirement processing. Kupor also argued that outdated systems, rather than staffing levels, are to blame for the challenges HR employees are facing. The director’s letter comes in response to recent concerns from Democrats over major retirement processing delays, caused by a flood of paperwork from the deferred resignation program.
  (OPM touts digitization efforts, blames outdated tech for retirement delays - Federal News Network)
• Members of the National Guard are patrolling in New Orleans on this New Years’ Eve, a year after a truck attack on Bourbon Street killed 14 people. President Trump authorized 350 troops to deploy to the city in order to help with security. The guard members are expected to stay beyond New Years’ though, through the end of the Mardi Gras season. The city has yet to implement permanent security changes in the aftermath of the Jan. 1 attack.
  (National Guard patrolling New Orleans on New Year's Eve - The Associated Press)
• Another court ruling now prevents the Trump administration from dismantling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled against the White House, which had argued the CFPB can’t be funded by earnings from the Federal Reserve because of a deficit on the Fed’s own balance sheet. Jackson said that legal theory was an attempt to circumvent an earlier injunction that kept the administration from firing the agency’s workforce. A union lawsuit over whether the administration can legally shut down the agency is set to go to trial in February.
  (Another court prevents Trump administration from dismantling CFPB - The Associated Press)

The post DHS agrees to push back plans to dissolve TSA union first appeared on Federal News Network.

House Democrats are urging the Transportation Security Administration to abandon efforts to do away with a collective bargaining agreement covering some 47,000 TSA airport screeners.

In a Dec. 23 letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and acting TSA Administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill, 12 Democrats on the Homeland Security Committee say they have “deep concern” about the latest attempt to overturn TSA’s union agreement.

The letter signees include Homeland Security Committee Ranking Member Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and subcommittee on transportation and maritime security Ranking Member LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.).

Their letter points to an ongoing case in federal court over the Department of Homeland Security’s directive to end TSA’s collective bargaining agreement. The judge in that case issued a preliminary injunction in June blocking DHS’s previous efforts to dissolve the agreement.

“DHS’s renewed effort to unilaterally void a valid, seven-year collective bargaining agreement – without a resolution to the pending litigation – displays a clear and flagrant disregard for the rule of law and workers’ rights,” the lawmakers write.

TSA has said it plans to eliminate the collective bargaining agreement and implement a new “labor framework” for the agency starting Jan. 11.

The American Federation of Government Employees represents most TSA staff under the 2024 collective bargaining agreement. AFGE joined with several unions in filing the lawsuit challenging DHS’s prior attempt to dissolve the CBA.

Lawyers representing DHS in federal court recently filed a motion to dismiss the case, arguing that Noem’s new September determination to end TSA union rights is based on “an entirely different supporting record and data unavailable” at the time of Noem’s previous directive, which led to the court case and the preliminary injunction.

AFGE’s lawyers have since countered with an emergency motion to enforce the preliminary injunction. They argue DHS is attempting to “evade the court’s injunction.”

The judge overseeing the case recently directed the parties to confer on a briefing schedule for the emergency injunction.

The Trump administration has sought to do away with most federal employee unions. At DHS, leaders have argued that collective bargaining for TSA officers “is inconsistent with efficient stewardship of taxpayer dollars and impedes the agility required to secure the traveling public,” according to TSA’s statement on the new labor framework.

“Our Transportation Security Officers (TSOs) need to be focused on their mission of keeping travelers safe not wasting countless hours on non-mission critical work,” Adam Stahl, senior official performing the duties of TSA deputy administrator, said as part of a press release. “Under the leadership of Secretary Noem, we are ridding the agency of wasteful and time-consuming activities that distracted our officers from their crucial work.”

But in their letter, House Democrats argue that the 2024 union agreement was negotiated “in good faith to address long-standing issues at TSA, such as high attrition rates, inconsistent workplace policies, and the lack of a proper system for employees to voice safety and operational concerns.”

“Eliminating collective bargaining protections for TSOs will not improve efficiency or security,” they wrote. “It will silence workers who are best positioned to identify safety risks, exacerbate attrition at a time of ongoing staffing challenges, and ultimately make air travel less safe for the American public.”

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