As Disability Pride Month comes to a close, the Trump administration has marked the occasion by making it difficult-to-impossible for disabled federal workers to do their work. Workers from multiple agencies allege that the Trump administration has been systematically denying or stalling accommodation requests and rescinding telework as an accommodation. Several employees say they have faced retaliation for requesting telework accommodations in the first place.
When the second Trump administration took office, one of its first moves was to mandate a return to in-person work for federal workers. While the order noted that the memorandum should be “implemented consistent with applicable law,” that part has been interpreted generously. Having moved to discard collective bargaining agreements that established remote work benefits, the Trump administration is now eliminating telework accommodations for disabled federal workers who rely on them. While there may be good reasons to prefer in-person work in specific instances, the administration’s blanket approach appears designed to demoralize workers, with discriminatory consequences for disabled workers.
Many workers in the US are protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which prohibits discrimination and requires covered employers to reasonably accommodate employees with disabilities on the job. The ADA also establishes accessibility and nondiscrimination requirements for state and local government services and many businesses open to the public. Title 1 of the ADA, however, expressly excludes “the United States” and wholly owned federal corporations from its definition of an employer. Those who work for federal agencies and the US Postal Service are nevertheless afforded similar protections under Section 501 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which actually goes beyond the ADA in requiring the US government to take affirmative action to recruit and retain disabled workers. It is likely because of this that disabled workers are overrepresented in the federal government.
Trump administration officials justified the return-to-office requirements by claiming that telework was being “abused,” conflating being in the office with “going to work” in a way that implied that remotely performed work somehow didn’t count. They also claimed, without evidence, that telework was negatively affecting productivity. In fact, telework has been associated with increased productivity and improved morale in a variety of contexts, including some in the public sector. Flexible telework policies are also an excellent example of universal design, an approach that, when possible, reframes accommodations as benefits for all staff. This helps reduce stigma and resentment while improving working conditions for workers with and without disabilities. In the case of telework, those without disabilities who simply perform better working remotely have the opportunity to do what helps them thrive. A recent survey of federal workers bears this out, as morale and productivity have plummeted since the enforcement of return-to-office measures.
It is also reasonable to think that achieving those survey results was the intended purpose all along. The back-to-the-office edict appeared alongside a host of other measures to demoralize and ultimately drive workers out of the federal government. Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought didn’t mince words with respect to federal employees: “When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work.… We want to put them in trauma.” Vought’s hope was, in part, to destroy the federal bureaucracy’s capacity to enforce federal regulations (“…so that the EPA can’t do all of the rules against our energy industry”) that protect the public good.
The trauma the administration has inflicted has hit disabled federal workers especially hard. The poor treatment of disabled federal workers is also taking place amid the Trump administration’s attacks on people with disabilities more broadly. These include a recent memorandum from the Department of Justice (DOJ) that argued, despite decades of legal precedent, that states are not obligated to provide home- and community-based care to disabled people who require such support to remain in their communities. Advocates warn such an approach could result in a return to mass exclusion and institutionalization, resulting in the de facto segregation of people with disabilities from society.
If there is one bright spot, it is that the unions that represent federal workers with disabilities are fighting to defend their rights. Unions can play a critical role in upholding the rights of disabled people by making it easier for workers to hold employers accountable. Unions are also associated with wage and benefit premiums for disabled workers. This is one reason why increasing unionization is part of CEPR’s Majority Agenda, which highlights broadly popular policy changes that would meaningfully improve the lives of working people.
Ultimately, the federal workforce benefits from the contributions of disabled workers, and pushing them out by denying accommodations is both cruel and a loss for the public they serve. The Trump administration is shortchanging everyone by stripping disabled public servants of the accommodations they need to keep serving.
This first appeared on CEPR.
