Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have suggested ending remote work for government employees and letting go of any staffers who don’t comply – as a way of ruthlessly cutting government spending.
According to the co-leaders of President-elect Donald Trump’s new (Department of Government Efficiency) DOGE panel, the effort aims to “thin federal bureaucracy by 25%”, by prompting a “wave of voluntary terminations” reminiscent of Dell’s recent remote work ultimatum.
With the majority of federal workers already working in office locations full-time, several union leaders believe DOGE’s latest attack is mistargeted. Governmental labor unions also aren’t willing to take this potential order lying down either, with the head of the National Federation of Federal Employees claiming that they will fight back with legal action if they have to.
Trump and Ramaswarmy: Come Into The Office Full-Time, Or You’re Fired
Over the last couple of years, waves of big tech companies have begun cracking down on remote work by demanding workers back into the office – with CEOs like Elon Musk leading the charge. It should come as little surprise then, that billionaire Tesla and Space-X CEO has decided to extend policy to federal employees, after he became one of Donald Trump’s efficiency advisers.
This just in! View
the top business tech deals for 2024 👨💻
Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy – fellow billionaire entrepreneur – both suggested that Trump could pull government workers back into the office five days a week, ushering in a wave of “voluntary terminations” as a result, in an effort to reduce the size of the federal workforce.
“If federal employees don’t want to show up, American taxpayers shouldn’t pay them for the Covid-era privilege of staying home,” – Musk and Ramaswamy wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed
In a Wall Street Journal op ed, the DOGE commission explained that they would first “work with legal experts” to identify regulations that Trump can repeal. The process would rely on “advanced technology”—which is likely a reference to AI—and would “identify the minimum number of employees” required for an agency to perform its essential function. Essentially, this plan aims to strip government agencies down to skeleton teams, in a manner reminiscent of Musk’s takeover of X (formerly known as Twitter).
How Else Does DOGE Plan to Slash Spending?
In Musks and Ramaswarmy’s opinion piece, they claimed the newly created government agency DOGE aims to cut a total of $500 billion in annual spending.
While slimming the herd with mandatory return-to-office policies is considered to be a potential “early candidate” for executive orders being recommended to Donald Trump, it isn’t the only way the DOGE duo is planning to save money. Musk and Ramanway are also considering squeezing out employees by moving agencies out of Washington DC.
“Unlike government commissions or advisory committees, we won’t just write reports or cut ribbons. We’ll cut costs.” – Musk and Ramaswamy wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed
On top of this, Musk has suggested cutting $2 trillion in annual federal spending, by scaling back funding given to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, “progressive groups” like Planned Parenthood, and international organizations. Programs with expired funding will also not be put back on the government’s bill if DOGE has their way. This will impact programs that provide housing assistance, opioid treatment, and veterans healthcare.
Could DOGE’s Remote Work Ultimatum Work?
The reality is, for many federal workers, commuting into the office five days a week is simply unrealistic. Several government employees told CNN this policy would upend their lives, with one worker having moved to the midwest during Covid, and another living around two to three hours away from their offices in Washington DC.
Unfortunately for these workers, their inability to return to physical office premises could likely put their jobs at risk, which would in turn help Ramasway and Musk meet their target of thinning federal bureaucracy by “25%”.
However, despite Musk’s and Ramaswan’s assertion that federal employees are taking advantage of “Covid-era remote privileges”, the majority of government workers are already working on-site, 100% of the time. To be specific, 80% of regular working hours are spent in-person, and only 10% of federal workers are fully remote, according to a report from the Office of Management (OMB) and Budget.
“The implication that federal employees writ large are not working in-person is simply not backed up by data and reality,” Everett Kelley, the national president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), said in a statement.
Kelley also believes that any changes in working conditions that could impact union contracts, would need to be negotiated through a collection bargaining process. This call is echoed by the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE), which represents 110,000 federal workers. They told the Wall Street Journal that if a strict RTO mandate was implemented, they wouldn’t hesitate to challenge it with legal action.
Time and time again, tech CEOs have dismissed the needs of their employees by demanding them back into the office full-time. Often times for Musk, these efforts have been successful. However, the calls from these labor unions suggest that if DOGE’s strict ultimatum comes to fruition, government employees won’t be afraid to fight back.
