The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has revoked permission for employees with disabilities to work from home, at least temporarily, and paused approving reasonable accommodations for new applicants seeking to work from home, according to a Sept. 15 email obtained by STAT.
The agency’s decision stems from the Trump administration’s January directive to mostly end remote work for federal employees and is tied to an August update to a broader Health and Human Services telework policy, which the CDC email said did not include long-term telework as an option for federal employees with disabilities.
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The email says CDC is awaiting clarification from HHS, but meanwhile, “all approvals for long-term telework, to include reasonable accommodation (RA) long-term telework are paused until further notice.” Employees may still submit requests for reasonable accommodation and are “encouraged to reach out to their supervisor or manager for assistance with an interim solution,” according to the email from an official in the CDC’s Office of Human Resources.
It’s unclear how many CDC employees work remotely full time, though Yolanda Jacobs, president of AFGE Local 2883, one of the unions representing CDC workers, said that dozens of employees were affected by the withdrawal of approval for remote work.
Disability lawyers suggested that the CDC’s action could violate the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, a landmark law that provides employment protections for federal employees with disabilities.
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“This raises serious concerns, any type of reasonable accommodation must be individualized and looking at the specific job’s duties,” said Alison Barkoff, the former head of the Administration for Community Living. “A blanket policy that telework can never be an accommodation raises serious legal concerns.”
This confusion over remote work started in January, when President Trump issued an executive order calling for agency heads to “terminate remote work arrangements” and require employees to return to working in person, though federal officials would later carve out telework exceptions. The uncertainty spread when everyone at the CDC who oversaw reasonable accommodations was let go as part of the major April reduction in force, at which time employees with pending requests for reasonable accommodations were given temporary approval for their exemptions, according to Jacobs.
There was no movement in this telework tug-of-war until Monday, when CDC employees with longstanding reasonable accommodations and others who had submitted requests were denied without explanation. Jacobs believes this policy change can be attributed to “overreach and overinterpretation” from CDC officials who were unsure of how to interpret the August policy update. It’s unclear whether other health agencies will be affected.
HHS officials did not respond to a request for comment.
CDC employees were not given detailed explanation for why their reasonable accommodations or requests had been withdrawn, though disability law requires that supervisors have conversations with federal employees about why they need accommodations for their specific role. One employee received an email revoking their telework accommodation at 2:23 a.m. on Tuesday, according to emails obtained by STAT. Their supervisor had not been made aware of the decision. Jacobs said that others were told to report to work the next day, disability notwithstanding.
“That means that some employees would no longer be able to work for the agency,” she said. “You’re being told that your disability doesn’t matter.”
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