{"id":521,"date":"2026-07-15T21:44:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T21:44:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marketrelocationreport.com\/?p=521"},"modified":"2026-07-15T21:44:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T21:44:07","slug":"arbitrator-restores-telework-and-remote-work-at-the-forest-service-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marketrelocationreport.com\/?p=521","title":{"rendered":"Arbitrator restores telework and remote work at the Forest Service"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Some 20,000 U.S. Forest Service employees could soon get their telework and remote work agreements restored\u2014and for some ex-workers, their jobs back\u2014after an independent arbitrator last week found the agency violated union contracts when it canceled those deals last year.<\/p>\n

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In April 2025, Forest Service management unilaterally canceled the two workplace flexibilities en masse, as part of the agency\u2019s implementation of President Trump\u2019s January 2025 directive that federal employees report to agency offices on a full-time basis. The National Federation of Federal Employees, a union that represents around 20,000 Forest Service workers, filed a grievance, asserting violations of its contract with the agency, which mandated that telework could only be canceled because of an employee\u2019s performance, changes in eligibility or because of a \u201cbusiness need.\u201d<\/p>\n

Office of Personnel Management guidance issued in 2025 said that agencies should implement Trump\u2019s return-to-office mandate \u201cin accordance\u201d with their collective bargaining obligations but advised without evidence that telework provisions of union contracts were \u201cunlawful and unenforceable.\u201d<\/p>\n

In proceedings before an independent arbitrator, NFFE argued that the agency\u2019s disregard of its CBA amounted to an unfair labor practice, as well as a violation of merit systems principles, which bar \u201carbitrary\u201d personnel actions. Union officials testified to a chaotic rollout of return to office, as the agency struggled to cobble working arrangements for jobs that traditionally had little in-office component.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur Forest Inventory and Analysis employees\u2014their job is to go out to the field and count trees literally, and go back to their office and record those data…those were often remote employees because, if you have a unit that has to cover a dozen states, it does not make sense for the agency to have, you know, little, tiny offices or rental arrangements,\u201d said Carl Houtman, negotiations chairman for NFFE\u2019s Forest Service Council, per the arbitrator. \u201cIt\u2019s just the way it has been for a very long time. And employees have built their lives around this type of remote work.\u201d<\/p>\n

The agency, for its part, argued that the cancellation of telework and remote work agreements constituted an evocation of management rights, and argued that implementation of a presidential directive constituted a \u201cbusiness need\u201d for the purposes of the CBA.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe agency denies that it committed an unfair labor practice by failing to bargain the change and by unilaterally implementing a change tor remote assignments,\u201d arbitrator Robert T. Simmelkjaer wrote. \u201cFrom the agency\u2019s perspective, it \u2018had no choice regarding whether or not it implemented the directives set forth in the presidential memo and therefore had no duty to bargain over the changes.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

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But Simmelkjaer disagreed, finding that Trump\u2019s return-to-office memo was legally akin to an executive order or change in federal regulations, which courts have found do not take precedent over pre-existing provisions of collective bargaining agreements. That means that the Forest Service should have waited until the next set of contract negotiations to broach the issue, he wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbsent express contract language granting the agency unilateral authority to terminate the individual remote and telework agreements, irrespective of supervisory input, and assuming arguendo that the agency purportedly had no choice except to implement the president\u2019s memorandum, this arbitrator cannot construe the PM and its RTO as preempting the terms and conditions of a legally binding CBA,\u201d Simmelkjaer wrote.<\/p>\n

Simmelkjaer ordered the Forest Service to reinstate telework and remote work agreements that existed prior to Trump\u2019s memo, as well as to offer those who left the agency due to the return-to-office mandate their old jobs back.<\/p>\n

In a statement, NFFE Forest Service Council President Genny Kotyk said the decision could serve as a needed reprieve from the Trump administration\u2019s plan to reorganize the agency and move its headquarters to Utah.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis favorable decision could not have come at a better time,\u201d she said. \u201cOur employees are currently being threatened to move across the country and uproot their lives\u2014supposedly to cut costs\u2014or being forced to leave the agency. With telework and remote work agreements lawfully reimplemented, many employees will be relieved of having to make that difficult decision, while also saving taxpayers the substantial cost to relocate.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The U.S. Forest Service violated its collective bargaining agreement with the National Federation of Federal Employees last year when it unilaterally canceled telework and remote work agreements en masse as part of the Trump administration\u2019s return-to-office mandate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":504,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-workforce"],"yoast_head":"\nArbitrator restores telework and remote work at the Forest Service - Market Relocation Report<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/marketrelocationreport.com\/?p=521\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Arbitrator restores telework and remote work at the Forest Service - 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