Federal workers who telework one day a week could lose locality pay

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Still no solution to address the fact that agencies do not have space for all of their employees. Many agencies gave up leased private office space and transitioned their employees to new space with limited time in the office. They cannot fit all of their employees in their offices at one time. The whole model is based on the idea that some employees work remotely.

You’re presuming that employees all deserve offices. I’m sure they’d be happy for you to be sharing offices and sitting on chairs in hallways.

Nope; but I am presuming that everyone gets a desk. My agency does not have enough space for every employee to be sitting at the office at the same time.

I worked for a local gov once that had 6 attorneys in a conference room with a couple sharing two sides of a desk. Don’t underestimate how bad conditions can be!

Our agency already has two feds sharing a cubicle, which is one reason we telework!

+1, lots of feds already share offices, have workstations in hallways, require contractors to be remote to save space. We're talking about exceeding the legal capacity of the building if everyone is in every day.

If this passes just call the fire marshall each day to report violations.

Fire marshals only have power to the extent the feds let them. Likewise, GSA regulations and rules are not laws; they can easily be changed through rule making

You don’t know how local vs fed conflicts of laws works. You also don’t know what rules and regulations are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Still no solution to address the fact that agencies do not have space for all of their employees. Many agencies gave up leased private office space and transitioned their employees to new space with limited time in the office. They cannot fit all of their employees in their offices at one time. The whole model is based on the idea that some employees work remotely.

You’re presuming that employees all deserve offices. I’m sure they’d be happy for you to be sharing offices and sitting on chairs in hallways.

Nope; but I am presuming that everyone gets a desk. My agency does not have enough space for every employee to be sitting at the office at the same time.

I worked for a local gov once that had 6 attorneys in a conference room with a couple sharing two sides of a desk. Don’t underestimate how bad conditions can be!

Our agency already has two feds sharing a cubicle, which is one reason we telework!

+1, lots of feds already share offices, have workstations in hallways, require contractors to be remote to save space. We're talking about exceeding the legal capacity of the building if everyone is in every day.

If this passes just call the fire marshall each day to report violations.

Fire marshals only have power to the extent the feds let them. Likewise, GSA regulations and rules are not laws; they can easily be changed through rule making

This is a bit reductive, especially for buildings leased from private owners. They are not going to be ok with violating max capacity. Nor are DC building laws likely to change.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Still no solution to address the fact that agencies do not have space for all of their employees. Many agencies gave up leased private office space and transitioned their employees to new space with limited time in the office. They cannot fit all of their employees in their offices at one time. The whole model is based on the idea that some employees work remotely.

You’re presuming that employees all deserve offices. I’m sure they’d be happy for you to be sharing offices and sitting on chairs in hallways.

Nope; but I am presuming that everyone gets a desk. My agency does not have enough space for every employee to be sitting at the office at the same time.

I worked for a local gov once that had 6 attorneys in a conference room with a couple sharing two sides of a desk. Don’t underestimate how bad conditions can be!

Our agency already has two feds sharing a cubicle, which is one reason we telework!

+1, lots of feds already share offices, have workstations in hallways, require contractors to be remote to save space. We're talking about exceeding the legal capacity of the building if everyone is in every day.

If this passes just call the fire marshall each day to report violations.

Fire marshals only have power to the extent the feds let them. Likewise, GSA regulations and rules are not laws; they can easily be changed through rule making

This isn’t true.

[Anonymous]

Well, if you are living somewhere else you should not have locality pay. I know someone who works remotely and moved to FL (job is in DC). But if you live in the DMV, no your locality pay shouldn’t be taken away. The Federal Government should sell all those empty buildings or stop renting them if they want to save money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m just tired of being hated on. Like so insulted. members get served by Feds in so many ways they don’t even know yet they all are lt hate us all.

Agreed. Teleworking also allows me flexibility to provide better service because I can schedule phone calls with people outside of business hours in my time zone.

You can just ask the people I've helped. I'm proud of what I have accomplished.

+1. Plus I end up working more because I am not commuting. There is not a single study showing a drop in productivity due to feds teleworking.

But also joke’s on them— because of pay compression losing DC locality pay would hardly touch my salary.

There are some loafers who don't work during telework and they should be getting rid of them first.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would you rather loose locality pay to be able to telework at least one day a week or rather keep locality pay and return to work 5 days a week?

I'd personally go in, because, no joke, the difference is 30k but 90% of my agency is not DC area, we're all 50 states. We hired hundreds of people entirely remotely.

this is what makes me laugh. my DH is a FED, we live in DC and less than 10 miles from his agency (15-20 min by car), he was doing some remote work already before covid (like 2 days week) and totally remote since 2020. we could not care less if he has to go back, he will. But people who were hired from red states far away, they are going to be screwed. some GOP rants about moving feds out of DC and dont realize the easier way is for jobs that can be remote to be remote so people from anywhere can be hired. so this is screwing the people from the very states these GOP reprs and senators are from. and I dont even mention that my DH's agency, in the middle of nowhere MD, does not have space and parking space for the number of employees so if everybody is 100% back in the office there is an issue where people are going to sit and how they get there if they cannot park anywhere. but hey, while the billionaires screw the country and increase the debt to unsustainable levels damaging everybody, the GOP needs some scapegoats to channel people's rage and as immigrants, trans, Muslims, the welfare queens may not be enough, they need to throw in the feds too, spending their time taking bubble baths and working 1-2 hours a day for a lavish amount of money funded by hardworking middle America that struggle from pay check to paycheck while working on site 12hr a day (cit. Joni Ernst)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would you rather loose locality pay to be able to telework at least one day a week or rather keep locality pay and return to work 5 days a week?

I'd personally go in, because, no joke, the difference is 30k but 90% of my agency is not DC area, we're all 50 states. We hired hundreds of people entirely remotely.

this is what makes me laugh. my DH is a FED, we live in DC and less than 10 miles from his agency (15-20 min by car), he was doing some remote work already before covid (like 2 days week) and totally remote since 2020. we could not care less if he has to go back, he will. But people who were hired from red states far away, they are going to be screwed. some GOP rants about moving feds out of DC and dont realize the easier way is for jobs that can be remote to be remote so people from anywhere can be hired. so this is screwing the people from the very states these GOP reprs and senators are from. and I dont even mention that my DH's agency, in the middle of nowhere MD, does not have space and parking space for the number of employees so if everybody is 100% back in the office there is an issue where people are going to sit and how they get there if they cannot park anywhere. but hey, while the billionaires screw the country and increase the debt to unsustainable levels damaging everybody, the GOP needs some scapegoats to channel people's rage and as immigrants, trans, Muslims, the welfare queens may not be enough, they need to throw in the feds too, spending their time taking bubble baths and working 1-2 hours a day for a lavish amount of money funded by hardworking middle America that struggle from pay check to paycheck while working on site 12hr a day (cit. Joni Ernst)

Most of the feds are living in cheap 1 hour away areas like pg county

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m just tired of being hated on. Like so insulted. members get served by Feds in so many ways they don’t even know yet they all are lt hate us all.

Agreed. Teleworking also allows me flexibility to provide better service because I can schedule phone calls with people outside of business hours in my time zone.

You can just ask the people I've helped. I'm proud of what I have accomplished.

+1. Plus I end up working more because I am not commuting. There is not a single study showing a drop in productivity due to feds teleworking.

But also joke’s on them— because of pay compression losing DC locality pay would hardly touch my salary.

There are some loafers who don't work during telework and they should be getting rid of them first.

Totally agree but guess what, making those people show up in the office isn’t going to make them be more productive

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, if you are living somewhere else you should not have locality pay. I know someone who works remotely and moved to FL (job is in DC). But if you live in the DMV, no your locality pay shouldn’t be taken away. The Federal Government should sell all those empty buildings or stop renting them if they want to save money.

If you are remote somewhere else - you do lose DC locality pay. I certainly did.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would you rather loose locality pay to be able to telework at least one day a week or rather keep locality pay and return to work 5 days a week?

I'd personally go in, because, no joke, the difference is 30k but 90% of my agency is not DC area, we're all 50 states. We hired hundreds of people entirely remotely.

this is what makes me laugh. my DH is a FED, we live in DC and less than 10 miles from his agency (15-20 min by car), he was doing some remote work already before covid (like 2 days week) and totally remote since 2020. we could not care less if he has to go back, he will. But people who were hired from red states far away, they are going to be screwed. some GOP rants about moving feds out of DC and dont realize the easier way is for jobs that can be remote to be remote so people from anywhere can be hired. so this is screwing the people from the very states these GOP reprs and senators are from. and I dont even mention that my DH's agency, in the middle of nowhere MD, does not have space and parking space for the number of employees so if everybody is 100% back in the office there is an issue where people are going to sit and how they get there if they cannot park anywhere. but hey, while the billionaires screw the country and increase the debt to unsustainable levels damaging everybody, the GOP needs some scapegoats to channel people's rage and as immigrants, trans, Muslims, the welfare queens may not be enough, they need to throw in the feds too, spending their time taking bubble baths and working 1-2 hours a day for a lavish amount of money funded by hardworking middle America that struggle from pay check to paycheck while working on site 12hr a day (cit. Joni Ernst)

Most of the feds are living in cheap 1 hour away areas like pg county

Yup. You try supporting a family on 100k with a reasonable commute to DC, if you didn't buy a house 10 years ago. Parts of PG county are pretty close in, but lots of us live places like Frederick, Woodbridge, Fredericksburg, etc. Telework helped us balance relatively low salaries (most feds aren't lawyers at the SEC) with, you know, having a life. It's even harder to move close on a fed salary than it was before covid.

[Anonymous]

As they should. Look up the definition of locality pay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, if you are living somewhere else you should not have locality pay. I know someone who works remotely and moved to FL (job is in DC). But if you live in the DMV, no your locality pay shouldn’t be taken away. The Federal Government should sell all those empty buildings or stop renting them if they want to save money.

This already happens for feds. Feds aren't allowed to remote work or telework anywhere they want. There is a fixed location. It's occasionally checked by IT as well to make sure it's correct. You're paid based on where your home is and where you remote work from.

In my agency it's a HUGE deal to move as a remote worker. Like the cabinet level official has to sign off on it and they only do so every few months. They can easily deny remote workers the ability to move. I had a coworker who wanted to own 2 homes and move between them seasonally and this was denied.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would you rather loose locality pay to be able to telework at least one day a week or rather keep locality pay and return to work 5 days a week?

I'd personally go in, because, no joke, the difference is 30k but 90% of my agency is not DC area, we're all 50 states. We hired hundreds of people entirely remotely.

This is the same for my wife. She's in the DC area so she can go in if she's ordered to, but she was hired to be 100% remote. She's never been to any office in the DC area. I'm not even sure there IS an office for her section.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would you rather loose locality pay to be able to telework at least one day a week or rather keep locality pay and return to work 5 days a week?

I'd personally go in, because, no joke, the difference is 30k but 90% of my agency is not DC area, we're all 50 states. We hired hundreds of people entirely remotely.

this is what makes me laugh. my DH is a FED, we live in DC and less than 10 miles from his agency (15-20 min by car), he was doing some remote work already before covid (like 2 days week) and totally remote since 2020. we could not care less if he has to go back, he will. But people who were hired from red states far away, they are going to be screwed. some GOP rants about moving feds out of DC and dont realize the easier way is for jobs that can be remote to be remote so people from anywhere can be hired. so this is screwing the people from the very states these GOP reprs and senators are from. and I dont even mention that my DH's agency, in the middle of nowhere MD, does not have space and parking space for the number of employees so if everybody is 100% back in the office there is an issue where people are going to sit and how they get there if they cannot park anywhere. but hey, while the billionaires screw the country and increase the debt to unsustainable levels damaging everybody, the GOP needs some scapegoats to channel people's rage and as immigrants, trans, Muslims, the welfare queens may not be enough, they need to throw in the feds too, spending their time taking bubble baths and working 1-2 hours a day for a lavish amount of money funded by hardworking middle America that struggle from pay check to paycheck while working on site 12hr a day (cit. Joni Ernst)

Most of the feds are living in cheap 1 hour away areas like pg county

Yup. You try supporting a family on 100k with a reasonable commute to DC, if you didn't buy a house 10 years ago. Parts of PG county are pretty close in, but lots of us live places like Frederick, Woodbridge, Fredericksburg, etc. Telework helped us balance relatively low salaries (most feds aren't lawyers at the SEC) with, you know, having a life. It's even harder to move close on a fed salary than it was before covid.

As a fed, how does your family make 100k? A GS7, step 1 makes $57,164 and we don't hire below a GS7 (interns are lower). Two GS7s would still be making $114k and your income would increase yearly.

I agree that most feds are not GS 15. Most are likely GS11s, which make $84-109k. It's not that hard to live on double that salary with both people working.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As they should. Look up the definition of locality pay.

If I live in Rockville and my office is in Rockville my locality pay is not affected … as it shouldn’t be.