ATLANTA — U.S. Sen. Rev. Raphael Warnock is pushing for answers from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services over changes to their policies for disabled workers.
According to a letter sent by Warnock and Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, policies for reasonable accommodation policies approved for some disabled federal employees at HHS are changing.
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The letter from the senators to HHS Sec. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. asks why disabled employees who had already received accommodation requests approved for telework would have to reapply for it under new policies.
In addition to having to reapply, employees are being required to return to their duty station and if they cannot, they are being told to take another form of leave such as using paid time off or sick leave, according to the letter.
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“HHS is the leading federal agency tasked with preserving the health of Americans, including those with disabilities. One in four Americans live with a disability, and they not only benefit from various federal programs and services but also meaningfully contribute to the functioning of the federal government,” the senators wrote in their inquiry.
The rights of disabled federal employees are set by the 1973 Rehabilitation Act, in similar fashion to the Americans with Disabilities Act, according to Warnock’s office.
Under federal law, disabled workers have a legal right to reasonable accommodation, such as telework, unless it places an undue burden on their employer.
“The HHS guidance rescinds telework as a reasonable accommodation for qualified employees with disabilities, resulting in a pause on all new and renewing telework requests in at least one HHS operational division. This policy has already inflicted distress on employees whose approved telework accommodations or requests for telework accommodations were unexpectedly revoked,” the senators said.
Going further, the senators said other reports suggested HHS will start requiring telework requests to be approved by officials at the level of Assistant Secretary or higher, which they said “would constitute an extraordinary hurdle for civil servants.”
According to the senators’ letter to HHS, employees impacted include those with chronic medical conditions, those with compromised immune systems, employees with telework accommodations due to high-risk pregnancy, disabled veteran employees with post-traumatic stress disorder and others with physical conditions that make telework a necessity for their jobs.
The senators asked HHS to provide information about how many new or renewed applications for telework accommodation are currently pending review, broken down by agency, how many were canceled since Jan. 27’s Agency Return-to-Office Plan and how many veterans employed by HHS with service-related disabilities had accommodations in place that will be affected, among other requests.
Channel 2 Action News reached out to HHS for comment and is waiting for a response.
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