The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is backtracking on a policy change it made last week disqualifying telework as a “reasonable accommodation,” even for disabled workers.
The Centers of Disease Control made a policy change effective Sept. 15 prohibiting employees to work from home even if they were previously able to do so as a reasonable accommodation for disability or medical issue.
However, the CDC decided to put the policy “on hold,” as it “seeks clarification,” on a new telework policy, according to internal emails obtained by USA Today.
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CDC workers’ union, American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), called the initial policy change a “dangerous plan,” and the “most sweeping civil rights violation against federal employees in decades.”
According to USA Today, the policy change was forwarded to CDC employees via email, stating that “all approvals for long-term telework, to include reasonable accommodation (RA) long-term telework, are paused until further notice.”
The next day, Sept. 16, the Office of the Chief Operating Officer sent a newsletter out to employees stating the U.S. Department of Human Health Services updated its telework policy and no longer included long-term telework as a reasonable accommodation for workers with disabilities.
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The decision was reversed just three days later, at least temporarily.
In an email obtained by USA Today, the CDC Office of Human Resources told employees the policy was “put on hold,” and they could continue working from home for the time being.
The Office of Personnel Management announced in January that federal employees would be required to return back to work in-person with the exception of “disability, qualifying medical condition, or other compelling reason certified by the agency head and the employee’s supervisor.”
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However, the CDC and HHS’s revised telework policy forwarded to employees earlier this month went against that guideline, excluding telework as a reasonable accommodation.
While the decision has since been reversed, USA Today reports a CDC supervisor believed the pause to be “interim.”