Telework Heads to Arbitration: What the Evidence Actually Shows

For more than a year, federal employees have been told the same thing: working from home undermines productivity, collaboration, and accountability.

This week we look at who is making that argument, what the evidence actually shows, and what Local 17 is doing about it at VA.

Welcome to this Monday’s edition of Local 17 in Action, our weekly look at how your union is advocating for employees across VA Central Office.

The blank wall

Scott Kupor, Director of the Office of Personnel Management, has been one of the administration’s leading voices against telework and in favor of return-to-office mandates. Which is what makes a recent Fortune report worth a moment of your time.

Fortune reported that Kupor recently recorded an official government video from his bedroom. By his own account, he deliberately positioned himself in front of a blank wall because he did not want viewers to realize he was at home.

OPM says Kupor was on a day off rather than teleworking. Fair enough. We will take that at face value.

But for federal employees who have been stripped of telework and ordered back into offices regardless of whether their work can be performed effectively from home, the irony is difficult to miss. The man directing the return-to-office push understood immediately that being seen working from home would undercut his message. Employees who have lost that flexibility understood the same thing a year ago.

So how is return-to-office actually working?

That is the more important question, and there is now some evidence to answer it.

A Federal News Network survey of 7,463 self-identified federal employees produced striking results:

• 76% said they were less productive after returning to the office
• 83% described their return-to-office experience as negative
• 93% wanted greater workplace flexibility

One caveat deserves to be stated up front, because we would rather say it than have it said to us: the survey was self-selected, and therefore is not scientific. People with strong feelings are more likely to answer. Treat it as a signal, not as proof.

But it is a large signal, and it will sound familiar to Local 17 members. Our membership has lost telework. The one exception is Board attorneys, who make up nearly half our bargaining unit and kept working remotely only because VA Central Office does not have the office space to seat them. Employees who performed their jobs remotely and successfully for years are now spending time and money commuting to offices, in many cases simply to sit at a computer and do the identical work they used to do at home.

Local 17 is taking VA to arbitration

We did more than object to VA’s elimination of telework.

On March 16, 2026, three days after Judge Melissa DuBose ordered the Department to restore the Master Agreement, Local 17 filed a grievance challenging VA’s unilateral termination of telework. It was the first grievance this Local had been able to file in more than seven months, because the Department had spent that time asserting that our members’ bargaining rights no longer existed.

The grievance argues that Secretary Collins repudiated Article 20 of the Master Agreement, which provides that employees may telework “as little as one day per month or as much as five days per week for full-time telework,” and that the Department’s blanket return-to-office requirement discarded that negotiated framework rather than interpreting it. It also asserts violations of the Telework Enhancement Act of 2010 and of VA’s statutory obligation to bargain in good faith.

The remedy we are asking for is straightforward: restore the status quo ante, reinstate the telework agreements that existed before the termination, make whole every bargaining unit employee harmed by it, and post a notice signed by the Secretary acknowledging the violation.

We are pursuing this case all the way to arbitration. The hearing is scheduled for November.

Why has it taken this long to get to a hearing? Because the Department has repeatedly dragged its feet throughout the grievance and arbitration process.

That is okay. Local 17 does not mind dragging them to the hearing.

Pressure works: an update on Kevin

Local 17 recently shared the story of Kevin Price, a medically retired Army veteran whose telework reasonable accommodation was rescinded, leaving him facing a commute of more than 150 miles each way.

The sequence matters here. Before Kevin moved, his supervisor had approved his request to relocate with his pregnant wife to a new home three hours from the office. Then, on February 5, 2026, Deputy Secretary Paul R. Lawrence issued a memorandum ordering a review of previously approved reasonable accommodations, directing decision-making officials to “maximize use of accommodation to enable in-person work, where possible.”

Kevin’s accommodation was rescinded.

Now read what the same memorandum says four paragraphs later, at 4(d):

Citing the Presidential Memorandum, Return to In-Person Work, dated January 20, 2025, and/or VA policy as the sole reason recurring telework or remote work cannot be granted is an insufficient justification for disapproval. Additional, individualized justification is required.

That is not the union’s characterization of VA policy. That is VA policy, in the Department’s own memorandum, signed by its own Deputy Secretary. Return-to-office alone does not justify taking an accommodation away. Individualized justification is required.

The full memorandum is below. Read it and judge for yourself whether that standard was met.

His case was among those featured when Government Executive investigated how the Department’s return-to-office policy is affecting disabled veterans.

There is now good news. After Local 17 helped bring Kevin’s story to Government Executive, VA granted him an interim telework accommodation while his case is reviewed. His fight is not over. But for now, Kevin can keep working from home.

Sometimes shining a light on what is happening makes a difference. Local 17 will keep shining it.

If your telework or your reasonable accommodation has been cancelled, denied, or quietly walked back, contact us. The cases that get resolved are the ones we hear about.

In solidarity,

Douglas E. Massey, Esq. President, AFGE Local 17, AFL-CIO

Related reading: On the accommodation fight specifically, see VA Telework Accommodation Crackdown: 4 Illegal Tactics Exposed and Local 17 Files Grievance on Sudden Telework Cancellation at OIT. Last week’s edition covered another interim accommodation Local 17 secured for a disabled Veteran, alongside the Board attorney quota fight. For the wider pattern, see 5 Brazen Ways VA Is Defying Collective Bargaining Rights.