In an effort to prevent spreading (wilfull or precipitate) of misinformation by certain managers regarding the rules that apply to telework program, here is an answer to a question circulating the hallways of RMA, “Can I still telework if I am a part-time employee?”
-Yes. The “Memorandum of Understanding RMA Kansas City Bargaining Unit Telework Program” (Telework Agreement) states that “Eligible employees include all RMA bargaining unit employees whose official duty station is Kansas City, Missouri.”
It is infuriating to witness unrelenting and underhanded efforts of certain managers to erode the benefits that the Union won for ALL the bargaining unit employees at RMA through hard work and dedication.
The complete RMA telework agreement can be found on this website in our resources section.
If you have questions about your rights please post a comment on our website. We will post an answer to your question here and you will be helping other bargaining unit members.

Last week, Senators Richard Burr (R-NC) and Tom Coburn (R-OK) introduced the Public-Private Employee Retirement Parity Act, S. 644, a bill to eliminate federal pensions for all new government hires starting in 2013. Under the deceptively named bill, new employees would no longer receive the pension portion of the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS). Instead, workers would receive only the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) portion of FERS in addition to their Social Security.

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New York (CNN) — The 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Co. Fire this Friday should throw into sharp relief recent efforts by lawmakers in Wisconsin and other states in the industrial heartland to curtail collective-bargaining rights for state employees.
The Triangle fire in New York City on March 25, 1911, killed 146 people, mainly women, mainly young immigrant women. Some were girls of 14 and 15. The fire broke out on the upper floors of the factory, too high for fire department ladders of those days to reach. People gathered on the street below watched in horror as women and men jumped to their deaths to avoid the enveloping flames. Observers talked of the sky raining flaming bodies. Many of the workers trapped inside were burned beyond recognition.

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“A unionized public employee, a teabagger, and a CEO are sitting at a table. In the middle of the table is a plate with a dozen cookies on it. The CEO reaches across and takes 11 cookies, looks at the teabagger and says, “Watch out for that union guy. He wants a piece of your cookie.”

Yet again RMA employees have been treated to a spectacle of secretive behavior and less than scrupulous manipulation, coming from the bowels of the “front office.”

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By Ed O’Keefe
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 7, 2010; 10:08 PM

The Obama administration is such a strong supporter of allowing federal employees to work from home that it even allowed a government official to be sworn in via telephone.

Because of the snowstorms earlier this year, Martha Johnson had no choice.

“I was sworn in from my kitchen, because we couldn’t get out of the snow and get to Washington to do it that way,” Johnson, head of the General Services Administration, said Thursday.

She and her husband had been shoveling snow in the driveway of their Annapolis home when she got the call, Johnson said Thursday at the Telework Exchange Town Hall Meeting in Washington.

“My husband looked like he was in his pajamas wearing his red snow suit,” Johnson said. “What you do when you’re sworn in is you have to hold your hand up and you have to speak and you have to put your hand on the Bible. Where do you put the cellphone? So my husband was holding the phone to my mouth, and I got sworn in. And that’s another example of work from home or another unusual place.”

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The new departmental regulation bans any and all text messaging by all USDA employees when driving an official government vehicle AND when driving a private vehicle while on official Government business. It also give agencies the authority to take appropriate disciplinary action for violation of this mandatory ban on texting, up to and including removal from Federal service, as outlined in Section 9 of this regulation.
So, if you get into an accident while driving a government vehicle or while driving your own car or rent-a-car while on government business, on top of all the fun stuff that goes with it, you could be fired from your job.
DO NOT TEXT AND DRIVE!