Office Reopening

As you may have seen, our agency has disclosed their plans for office re-opening and decided to limit telework options using a singular policy across all employees. Despite reaching out to agency management, our sub-local leadership wasn’t included in developing these plans and we believe they contradict our Collective Bargaining Agreement. As some of you may have noticed, the policy acknowledgment required as part of the process in requesting telework through Workday includes a disclaimer that the intent of the telework policies are not to amend or change any employment contract.  The referenced contract is our union negotiated Collective Bargaining Agreement, which supersedes all DAS and agency policies. The new limits on telework made by our agency may contradict contractual protections provided in Article 138.

Article 138 (in our contract) addresses new provisions for telework. The language explicitly states the agency can’t arbitrarily deny telework. We believe a limit of three days telework is an arbitrary decision, especially with agencies such as OWEB and ODOT already demonstrating that full time telework does not contradict state work. Therefore, if you are being forced to come into the office two days a week against your will to complete tasks that otherwise could have been done at home, we believe this is an arbitrary denial. As such, we will work with people who request more than the limit of three days of telework and are denied their preferred schedule for reasons unrelated to the agency’s business or operational needs. We also fully support staff who prefer working from the office - we simply believe these choices should be your own. I

Update: Enough data was collected from employees, so the union filed a group grievance. Union leadership is in the process of meeting with ODFW Management to discuss a resolusion. If no agreement can be made, we will move forward to DAS Labor Relations. This greviance can not go to arbitration. Stay tuned for more details as we move throught he grievance process.