The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has rescinded a policy issued on Monday that paused remote work for employees, including those with disabilities, according to emails obtained by STAT.
“Please hold on taking any immediate action,” the acting director of the CDC human resources office, Nathan Wells, wrote to senior CDC leaders and managers on Thursday afternoon, citing the need for clarification and coordination with the Department for Health and Human Services on implementation of an agency-wide policy governing telework.
The decision comes just three days after agency officials temporarily revoked reasonable accommodations, requiring workers to return to the office with little notice and leading to significant backlash from employees with disabilities or who otherwise had medical permission for extended remote work. The CDC’s telework policy will, like for every other agency under the Health and Human Services umbrella, revert to an August update that contained no guidance regarding long-term telework or reasonable accommodations. CDC officials are waiting for more instructions.
“I believe this is likely to be an interim pause while OHR gets more information from HHS,” wrote Seth Kroop, the deputy director for management, operations, communications, and policy at the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, in another email.
Prior to the reversal, disability lawyers and federal union leaders said that removing telework as an option would violate federal laws protecting government workers with disabilities.
“This represents the most sweeping civil rights violation against federal employees in decades,” said a Wednesday press release from AFGE 2883 and 3840, the unions representing CDC employees, adding, “This means no CDC employee with a disability will have the option of telework as a reasonable accommodation.”
CDC employees with established reasonable accommodations are now cleared to continue teleworking through the terms of their agreement. It’s unclear what will happen for employees who had submitted requests for accommodations in recent months but were stuck in limbo after the staff of the office that handled these requests were let go as part of the reduction in force in April.
Many of these employees were granted multiple extensions on their temporary approval before receiving an email earlier this week stating that their requests had been formally denied. One person with knowledge of the situation suggested that these requests had been “un-denied” and that employees would not have to return to the office.
HHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the rescinded policy.
On Wednesday, multiple CDC employees spoke on a call with reporters about what pausing telework and reasonable accommodations would mean for their work and their lives. Whether it’s for someone who is immunocompromised or has a caregiver or is pregnant, remote work allows employees to be productive and have financial stability, they said. That connective tissue unraveled on Monday, after officials announced the pause.
They also remain fearful about returning to work in an office building still riddled with bullet holes after the August shooting on CDC’s campus. They said that the confusion around telework will only exasperate the staffing challenges that the agency is having.
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