Union Says CDC Has Paused Telework for Employees with Disabilities

American Federation of Government Employee (AFGE) unions representing workers with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says the organization has put a stop to telework for its employees with disabilities.

In a statement calling for the “immediate reversal of illegal reasonable accommodation changes,” AFGE Locals 2883 and 3840 denounced CDC and Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) leadership’s “dangerous plan to indefinitely halt the approval or renewal of long-term telework as valid reasonable accommodations for employees with disabilities.”

Describing the decision to pause telework for employees with disabilities as “reckless,” the unions say doing so violates protections guaranteed to these workers under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Amendments Act (ADAAA) of 2008.

As reported by NPR, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management in January said that federal employees would have to return to the office full-time, with the exception of those “excused due to a disability, qualifying medical condition, or other compelling reason certified by the agency head and the employee’s supervisor.”

In August, the HHS shared an updated telework policy that did not include telework as a reasonable accommodation. According to AFGE, the new policy intentionally did not provide enough clarity for CDC employees with remote work arrangements.

“This deliberate confusion violates the interactive process that federal law requires,” the union said in a statement. “Agencies must work collaboratively with employees to identify effective accommodations—not create bureaucratic obstacles that harm both workers and their ability to do their jobs.

“Federal agencies must provide reasonable accommodation to qualified employees with disabilities,” the union statement continued. “The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 requires this protection across all federal workplaces. Agencies must track their performance on reasonable accommodations to ensure adequate processing. Right now, they are doing none of these.”