An indication marks the doorway to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2025, in Atlanta.
Brynn Anderson/AP
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Brynn Anderson/AP
A union representing Centers for Disease Control and Prevention staff is accusing the federal company of jeopardizing lodging for its disabled workers by ending distant work.
In January, the Office of Personnel Management mentioned federal workers must return to the workplace full-time, excluding these “excused as a result of a incapacity, qualifying medical situation, or different compelling cause licensed by the company head and the worker’s supervisor.”
Then, final month, the Department of Health and Human Services, the father or mother company of the CDC, launched an up to date telework coverage that doesn’t embrace telework as an affordable lodging.
Members of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), a union representing over 800,000 federal workers throughout the U.S., say that the revised coverage’s lack of readability round distant work has stoked confusion amongst workers members with remote-work preparations in addition to their supervisors.
Yolanda Jacobs, president of AFGE Local 2883, informed NPR on Wednesday that a few of CDC’s disabled workers are ready for a solution on whether or not working offsite stays an affordable lodging.
“If there’s any discussions occurring, it is occurring between the CDC’s management and HHS, it isn’t occurring with the workers,” she mentioned. “Employees are discovering out secondhand and final minute.”
The HHS and CDC weren’t instantly out there for remark.
NPR has obtained a replica of a memo with CDC branding from an individual who was not approved to launch it. The memo, dated Sept. 16., says the brand new telework coverage now not contains telework as an affordable lodging out there to workers. The CDC, it mentioned, will defer to the HHS on the way to proceed with disabled workers’ telework lodging, and that, “till further clarification is acquired,” approvals for any pending requests for distant work lodging can be “paused till additional discover.”
According to the memo, the brand new telework coverage took impact on Aug. 13.
The CDC has not responded to a request to touch upon the memo.
“Instead of ready on steerage from HHS, [the CDC has] determined to maneuver ahead on their very own interpretation of what cheap lodging ought to seem like,” Jacobs mentioned.
Another supply aware of the matter mentioned Wednesday that the union has acquired about 250 emails from disabled workers on the CDC’s Atlanta headquarters who’re involved about dropping their telework preparations. They embrace, for instance, staff who use wheelchairs or who require caretakers. The supply mentioned the CDC has not supplied official figures on what number of disabled workers have telework as an affordable lodging of their roles.
Employees can nonetheless work remotely till their present telework preparations expire, based on the memo. Jacobs informed NPR the union has been directing its members to assets to take authorized motion in the event that they select.
The confusion comes at a tumultuous time for the company. CDC was shaken up final month after HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired Susan Monarez lower than a month into her function as director. Several high leaders within the company resigned shortly after, together with infectious illness doctor Demetre Daskalakis. Monarez testified earlier than the Senate on Wednesday that she was fired for not giving into Kennedy’s pressures to fireside scientists and pre-approve vaccine suggestions for the general public.
