FTB Meet & Confer Update
Telework Policy

opportunity to learn more about the Departments’ expectations of employees in terms of establishing their home work space and have a conversation regarding the Department’s requirement that employees who use sick or vacation leave on an office assigned day must alter their telework schedule and later “make up” the office workday.

The Department was able to provide us with clarity on the expectations of employees home work stations in terms of maintaining confidentiality related to work assignments, namely that smart devices do not have to be removed but recording must be disabled, and employees must ensure that they do not have anyone present that would break confidentiality or adversely affect the employees’ duties.

However, after collecting our Team’s concerns regarding the “make up” requirement for employees who use leave on a day they are assigned to work in the office in accordance with the signed telework agreement, the Department was unwilling to have further conversations on the issue. Their position is that those concerns were not related to telework but to return to office requirements, which the Department sees as a separate and distinct issue.

Our Team asserted that the two issues cannot be addressed in a vacuum – especially because the requirement to make up leave taken on office days is directly tied to the telework agreements that employees enter into. The Department was not swayed. As a result, our Team is seeking meeting dates where we are able to discuss both the telework policy and the return to office policy at the same time. We are working on securing dates for this meeting and will have future updates.

If you have any questions, concerns, or issues related to the Department’s telework agreement, please inform your Bargaining Unit Chair or Job Steward so that our Team can address the issues during our next conversation with the Department. You can also send your concerns to unit1@seiu1000.org or unit4@seiu1000.org