Opinion - Remote work is a new battlefield for unions

Yahoo

22-04-2025

Remote work has erupted into one of the fiercest battlefields in modern labor relations. Unions representing employees at both private companies and government agencies are waging determined campaigns to keep telework options on the table, rejecting the notion that flexible schedules and location independence are merely perks to be rolled back at will.
From groundbreaking wins at Silicon Valley tech giants to tense standoffs with federal authorities, labor organizations are seizing this moment to redefine how — and where — work gets done.
A prime example of labor's evolving strategy can be found in the Alphabet Workers Union, which secured a landmark agreement with Accenture, a key Google contractor. Under this contract, Google Help workers are guaranteed the option of fully remote roles, a 30-day notice period for layoffs, six weeks of severance pay, and protection against invasive surveillance tools that track keystrokes or mouse movements.
By extending equal benefits and security provisions to full-time and contingent workers under a 'wall-to-wall' union model, the union defies a long-running trend of excluding contract staff from collective bargaining. That inclusivity is central to the broader campaign to protect workers from potential pitfalls of remote work, such as continuous digital surveillance and precarious employment conditions.
These efforts align with a wave of union-negotiated provisions worldwide. The UNI Global Union, which represents service and skills sector unions, compiled a database of 119 collective agreements containing remote work clauses from 25 countries. The findings reveal a global consensus that telework arrangements need robust worker protections. Eighteen percent of these contracts address surveillance explicitly, demanding openness about monitoring methods or else restricting data collection outright.
Over half mandate a 'right to disconnect,' ensuring that employees can clock out of their jobs in the digital realm. Spanish sector deals with Capgemini and Altamira Asset Management go so far as to include detailed measures that protect personal time, clarifying that workers are under no obligation to respond to messages or calls outside official hours.
Moreover, unions are taking on a host of new challenges tied to remote employment, including health, safety, and professional development. Rather than restricting themselves to traditional concerns like proper ventilation or on-site ergonomics, unions in countries such as Romania and Brazil now demand mental health training for remote workers, plus support for establishing healthy boundaries in home-based settings.
Italy's National Protocol includes targeted provisions for career advancement to ensure remote staff do not miss out on promotions, training, or networking opportunities, while also addressing gender disparities related to caregiving responsibilities. These forward-leaning measures underscore that unions increasingly view telework not as a temporary fix but as a permanent and central part of a modern labor landscape.
Many of these fights mirror the bitter disputes playing out in the U.S. federal sector. Unions including the American Federation of Government Employees and the National Treasury Employees Union have mobilized to preserve remote work provisions gained during the Biden administration — provisions they say are vital for employee retention and productivity.
A series of Trump administration executive orders, and recent guidance from the Office of Personnel Management , aim to dismantle federal telework arrangements. That guidance indicates that agencies can override union contracts when it comes to deciding how much or how little employees get to work from home. Legal experts warn that reversing negotiated telework clauses not only puts federal employees' work-life balance at risk but also sets a precedent that could weaken collective bargaining in other areas.
Moreover, in an illustration of the messy logistics of forcing agencies to rapidly curtail remote work, most agencies scrambled to comply on short notice, sowing confusion and frustration among managers and employees alike. As federal workers complied with President Trump's mandate to return to office-based work, agencies found themselves overwhelmed by logistical turmoil, from a shortage of desks to inadequate office space.
At NASA headquarters, just blocks from the U.S. Capitol, returning employees were greeted not only by a shortage of desks but also by an infestation of cockroaches, insiders related. Some staff members resorted to sitting in chairs without proper workstations. Meanwhile, employees in the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services privately describe the frantic search for desks in their regional offices as resembling scenes from 'The Hunger Games,' the dystopian series depicting young people battling desperately for scarce resources.
Amid this turmoil, the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union representing federal employees, reached an unprecedented membership of 319,233 active members, growing by more than 14,000 within just five weeks. This recent increase is nearly equivalent to the total number of new members the union attracted over the entire previous year, according to its spokesperson, Tim Kauffman.
No wonder Trump, in the face of union pushback, signed an executive order ending collective bargaining rights for federal workers. This might have gone too far even for some Republicans. A bipartisan group of House Republicans recently introduced legislation intended to invalidate executive orders that scrap collective bargaining agreements, including those authorizing remote work.
In both private and public contexts, the lesson is the same: remote work is no longer a fringe concept, nor is it a fleeting perk. It has become a vital labor right — one that unions consider critical to the survival and growth of the contemporary workforce.
The Alphabet Workers Union's success, global data on telework clauses, and ongoing disputes in Washington all point to the same conclusion. Whether in a Silicon Valley conference room or a federal court, the struggle over remote work provisions reveals a profound recalibration of power between employees, employers, and the unions that represent them. What may once have been viewed as a perk has transformed into a core stake in the future of labor. Today's conflicts will help determine whether working from home is an enduring right or a transient advantage that can be easily revoked.
Gleb Tsipursky, Ph.D., serves as the CEO of the hybrid work consultancy Disaster Avoidance Experts and authored the best-seller 'Returning to the Office and Leading Hybrid and Remote Teams.'
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.