Nothing better than paying federal employees to sit around at home and “work” rather than having them come back to the office and be supervised to sort of work, right?
205 Democrats vote against bill forcing federal workers to return to the office as COVID winds down
Nearly every House Democrat on Wednesday voted against a Republican bill requiring federal agencies to end their COVID-era telework policies and force federal workers to return to their offices.
Two hundred five Democrats voted against the Stopping Home Office Work’s Unproductive Problems Act, or the SHOW UP Act, and just three Democrats voted for it. The bill, which passed 221-206, would require federal agencies to return to the telework policies that were in place before the pandemic hit, and also require them to conduct an assessment of how nearly three years of telework affected the government’s productivity.
House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., said the legislation is needed because the liberal telework policy that has existed for nearly three years has eroded government service.
“Federal agencies are falling short of their missions,” Comer said on the House floor. “They are not carrying out their duties. They are failing the American people.”
“They have waited for months for their tax returns from the IRS,” he added. “They have waited for months for the Social Security administration to answer their questions and provide their benefits. Our veterans have even waited for months to get their medical records from the National Archives.”
You know the federal unions are fighting to keep their workers from coming back in, so, Democrats will back those unions.
Democrats rejected that argument and said telework has made the federal government more efficient.
“We strongly oppose this bill, which is an assault on all the progress we have made over the last several years in telework policy,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the top Democrat on the Oversight and Accountability Committee.
Most private companies returned to the office long ago. It’s high time that federal workers do so. The question now, can Republicans get a few Democrats to flip over and vote for the bill in the Senate?
My son retired from ICE- was fed up with the current situation at the border. It took him a year to get his pension. His Senator told him this is normal these days. Good thing he had savings.
Ya. That’s pretty much how things worked long before COVID. They left out that when they could get advice from the IRS, it would often be wrong and the taxpayers would have to pay penalties for following that wrong advice. And they left out how Vets are MUCH better off going to a civilian hospital for treatment and just having the VA pay for it. And they left out how most of the federal government workforce doesn’t do a whole lot of value, even when they are working in the office.
This is seriously the wrong hill for Republicans to fight their battles. They should be passing bills to simple reduce the federal workforce regardless of their productivity or office locations.
Imagine that.
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https://nypost.com/2023/01/29/democrats-offer-pay-hike-to-federal-workers-to-make-good-for-trump-covid/
L
#LetsGoBrandon
#FuckTheDebt
Bwaha! Lolgf
Excellent. So, now only 5% behind official Biden inflation rate. Sorry for the rest of America being punished by President Biden’s inflation. Causing inflation isn’t my department.
My younger daughter was one of those who survived layoffs due to COVID, and she worked from our house for three months; she’s an IT professional, who can do most of her work remotely. I added an electric receptacle outside so she could work on the screened-in porch.
But, spring and summer on the farm, with nice weather, cats, dogs, birds, even she admitted that her productivity wasn’t as high as it was working from the office. (Yesterday, she was working at a remote installation, fixing an install that another company had FUBARed.)
Even if Republicans manage to get this past the Senate, Joe Biden will veto it, so it’s going nowhere. However, Mr Biden has the authority to order the return to previous policies on his own, and it will be difficult for him not to do so after the ’emergency’ decree expires on may 11th.
I disagree. I’ve been working, as an IT consultant for more than 10 years. I think that if your daughter had the right equipment, or perhaps only better equipment, she’d be as productive from the porch (I work from a sunroom) as she could be sitting in a cube farm in a skyscraper. If she’s trying to work from a laptop with no peripherals, she’s doing it wrong. I have a wireless mouse, wireless keyboard, and a 55″ tv that I use as a monitor. If she constantly is distracted, then she should move indoors. If her distractions are personal email/youtube/facebook/instagram/etc, she should only use those sites on her personal computer, not her work computer.
If she thinks she could be more productive by working earlier hours, later hours, or a split shift with a break from 11a to 3p. She should discuss that with her boss.
I do do not miss spending 30-90 minutes, one way, in a car every day.
I agree. My home office has more monitors and larger ones that at work, plus I have much more desk space, quieter, fewer distractions, and more privacy. For me, working from home is a much better option. Plus, now that everyone can take classified documents home with them, I can do that from home too.
I’m torn. If they stay at home they get paid to essentially do nothing. But if they are forced to infest an office they will spend their time dreaming up bullshit to impose on us peons….out of boredom and spite, because most of them don’t actually have jobs that are useful.
No worries, Dan. Most government employees have nowhere near that much authority or ambition. If forced to go to work, they will spend their time surfing the net, not being creative about new laws and regulations. That’s only for the political appointees and activists.
The real issues are, does that office have legitimate work to do and do they have people with a proper work ethic to do it. I know a person who saves 5 hours a day by not commuting and uses that time to be more productive at work… without pay. Her office has lots of deadwood who took government jobs so that they could hide from doing real work, but still get a paycheck. So there is plenty of work to do and she has the work ethic to do it. Without work from home option, she would get 5 hours a day less work done. She is not unique. Just uncommon. I know a lot of people who believe the world stops turning if they don’t put in a 14 hour day.
I know several federal workers. They brag about the fact that they haven’t done any actual work since March of 2020. Nobody cares and nobody checks. One of them essentially retired and moved south, logs on to check e mail now and then and does no work. Been collecting a paycheck for 3 years now. they keep their head down, don’t make waves and don’t do anything and nobody cares.