The agreement includes office safety measures related to COVID-19 and general security.

The agreement includes office safety measures related to COVID-19 and general security. pooiekoo / Getty Images

A Union and the EEOC Have Reached a Settlement Over the Agency’s Failure to Negotiate Office Reentry

The deal requires health and safety inspections of all EEOC work sites, reduces the number of days employees must report to their offices to three per pay period, and opens the door to negotiating a remote work policy for employees.

This story has been updated on Dec. 5 at 10 a.m. to include comment from agency management.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the American Federation of Government Employees last week reached a settlement agreement to resolve unfair labor practice complaints stemming from the agency’s failure to negotiate with the union over its return to office procedures earlier this year.

Last May, as EEOC and AFGE Council 216, which represents workers at the agency that investigates claims of workplace discrimination, were in the midst of negotiating a memorandum of understanding governing how employees would return to physical work sites, management cut off negotiations and unilaterally implemented its own reentry plan.

In response, AFGE filed an unfair labor practice complaint, which the Federal Labor Relations Authority substantiated in August. The FLRA set a trial date for February 2023, but in the meantime, instructed the parties to enter mediation through its recently reconstituted Collaboration and Alternative Dispute Resolution Office, ultimately leading to last week’s agreement.

AFGE Council 216 President Rachel Shonfield said that although she’s happy with the result, the process to reach the agreement was “frustrating,” because many of the difficulties in negotiations stemmed from trying to fix processes that could have been more easily addressed prior to reentry. She noted that agency-initiated inspections of offices prior to reentry were done haphazardly, at least in part because the parties had not finished ironing out the details of how those inspections should occur or how the agency should remediate issues found during the process prior to the end of negotiations in May.

“One of the things that made this complicated and difficult was trying to figure out how to retroactively fix problems that could have been cured on the front end,” she said. “It would have made a lot more sense to have a [memorandum of understanding] on office safety in May, prior to reentry, but we spent an immense amount of time finally banging out the safety provisions in this [new memorandum], which is in keeping with our priorities of safety and updating workplace flexibilities, which are both a matter of safety as well as keeping up with other agencies.”

In a statement, EEOC Chairwoman Charlotte Burrows lauded the settlement.

“I am pleased that we have an agreement with the union and look forward to our continued partnership working to advance equal employment opportunities in the workplace," she said.

In addition to implementing additional safety measures, both related to COVID-19 as well as ensuring agency offices are secure, the settlement agreement expands some workplace flexibilities, and ensures that they do not sunset until at least next spring.

EEOC’s previous reentry plan was slated to discontinue those flexibilities at the end of the year, barring a decision to extend them further. Employees, who until this point were expected to report to agency offices twice per week, now only have to report to their traditional work sites three times per pay period. The agency also extended until next spring the use of “maxi-flex” hours, which expand the hours in which employees can do their job duties earlier in the morning and later in the evening.

Shonfield said the expansion of flexible hours is an example of a policy that benefits both employees and members of the public, much like EEOC’s popular virtual mediation option.

“We had a very successful maxi-flex program with broader start and stop times during the pandemic,” she said. “We found that was also good for the public, since not everyone works bankers’ hours. But until the agreement, it was just getting extended in dribs and drabs of 30-day extensions, so this MOU sets it in place until at least May 1.”

In the agreement, EEOC also committed to a timetable for proposing a remote work policy for some employees for the parties to bargain over.

“[Management] previously indicated they wanted to have [a remote work policy], but this is months later and there’s been no sighting of it yet,” Shonfield said. “This creates some timeframes for the agency to provide a plan that we can negotiate. That’s a positive for both sides, because it’s keeping us in the running with other agencies for retention purposes, so people don’t agency hop.”

Shonfield said she hopes this settlement can serve as a foundation upon which the union and agency can rebuild their relationship and work collaboratively moving forward. She stressed that employees want to be able to serve the public safely, and through whatever manner—in person or virtually—people with business before the EEOC are most comfortable.

“Our workforce jumped into this unknown phenomena of a pandemic and working remotely and never stopped serving the American people,” she said. “This [memorandum of understanding] gives us the opportunity to keep serving the public even better, because we can add what we’ve learned from the lessons of working remotely during COVID to how we worked in the past in the office, and not just turn our back on things that worked well [during the pandemic].”

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.