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Federal workers who have been summoned back into their offices five days per week are being met with less-than-desirable conditions, from cramped workspaces to dirty bathrooms, as the Trump administration seeks to cut costs by reducing space and staff, according to reports.
Following orders from President Donald Trump, government employees are returning to their offices full-time – all while the administration seeks to axe some of its real estate portfolio to reduce government spending.
Multiple federal employees across various agencies and departments have told news outlets they are working elbow-to-elbow as staff consolidates into workspaces.
Understaffed cleaning crews are reportedly struggling to keep up with the demand for tidy spaces, resulting in dirty bathrooms with no paper towels. Some staff have been asked to bring their own toilet paper or help out by taking their trash home, a federal employee told USA Today.
At the NASA headquarters, employees returned to the office last month to cockroaches scuttling across the floor and bugs emerging from water faucets, Matt Biggs, the president of the International Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers – the union that represents NASA workers told Reuters.
One Department of Agriculture employee working at its headquarters in D.C. told Reuters that staff are fighting for desk space and bathrooms have no paper towels.
At an IRS office in Tennessee, tax assessors are unable to discuss private tax matters with clients over the phone because they’re afraid of breaching privacy laws, an IRS manager told Reuters.
Trump’s mandate for federal workers to return to their office five days per week is part of his push to get rid of remote working policies, which he and other members of his administration have characterized as allowing people to slack off while getting paid by taxpayers.
More than half of government employees worked fully on-site, with approximately 80 percent of working hours spent in-person, a report from the Office of Management and Budget found. Only 10 percent of federal workers were fully remote.
Elon Musk, the brain behind the Department of Government Efficiency, had said forcing all federal employees back into the office full-time would lead to voluntary reductions in force.
The change-up has created more stressful work weeks for some who have adapted to working from home full-time. One Homeland Security employee told USA Today he spends two and half hours per day in his car commuting to and from work – cutting into time he could spend with his newborn child.
“It’s a huge morale killer,” he told USA Today.
