The Federal Government is on the cutting edge of telework for a variety of reasons. They are battling their own governmental culture that values keeping everything under their noses. But that is being degraded by their own policies of promoting telework throughout the government system.
Arbitrator Orders ATF To Let Examiners Telework
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives must allow a group of specialist employees to telework on a pilot basis as a result of a Dec. 13 decision by the Federal Service Impasses Panel (FSIP).
After the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) won an agreement from ATF in May 2006 on a telework program, ATF refused to permit its legal-instrument examiners to telework, citing security concerns. Legal-instrument examiners review legal documents, such as tort claims, appeals and other court documents, to determine compliance with applicable laws, regulations and policies.
ATF officials argued that letting the examiners remove sensitive documents from agency offices to work remotely would pose risks to national security and the general public.
However, Grace Flores-Hughes, the arbitrator for FSIP, noted in her ruling that another group of ATF workers, the industry operations investigators, had been teleworking for more than a year and were allowed to take the same materials from agency offices that are handled by the legal-instruments examiners.
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