After two years of negotiations, we have an interim agreement with the state to make telecommuting a right and a reality. In case you haven’t been following the history of this, our 2017 SEBAC agreement included a provision that made telecommuting a grievable right. Since then we have been in negotiations with the State to make this idea a reality. We now have a signed interim agreement.
This is a big deal. For the first time, telecommuting will exist as a right and not just by the discretion of management. This interim agreement represents what we hope will be the beginning of the biggest non-economic advance in our rights package since the inception of AWS decades ago.
What does this mean? For the first time, most A&R members will be able to work from home and appeal a decision of management to deny telecommuting. While this agreement is far from perfect, this program will begin on July 1st, 2019 and will continue until we reach a final agreement with the State.
While this is an important first step, there is much work left to do. As mentioned, this is an “interim” agreement. There are many aspects of this plan that we are continuing to contest and expect to arbitrate. Some of these issues include the state’s exclusion of some job classifications that should be able to telecommute, that we want to make the application process more fair and streamlined, and that the right to telecommute should generally be more expansive.
We have also created an email address specifically for telecommuting questions, so if you have issues with telecommuting, please direct them to telework@andr.org