Senate passes telework bill

[The Straight Story]

Senate passes telework bill
By Elizabeth Newell [e-mail] May 25, 2010

Late Monday, the Senate voted on and unanimously passed telework legislation which had been held up for more than a year.

The 2010 Telework Enhancement Act (S. 707), sponsored by Sens. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, and George Voinovich, R-Ohio, is designed to expand telecommuting opportunities in the federal government by making employees presumptively eligible and requiring agencies to take a number of actions to expand their telework programs.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee approved the bill last May, but a jurisdictional debate over a Patent and Trademark Office provision held up the legislation.

"I am pleased the Senate unanimously approved this bill to create robust telework programs in the federal government," Akaka said. "This winter's snowstorms highlighted the need to develop flexible work arrangements to make sure the government can function during disruptive events. The bill requires agencies to create telework policies and incorporate those policies into their continuity of operations planning."

Voinovich said the bill will not only allow federal employees to work during weather-related or other emergencies, but also will appeal to a new generation of workers. "The federal government must acknowledge that the next generation of employees will have different expectations of what it means to go to work," he said.

http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=45341&oref=todaysnews

[Union Yes]

1. This policy is good for Earth too. Private business needs to adopt a similar habit.

Think of how many fewer cars would be on the roads if many people could telework from home.

KNR

[livetohike]

2. Unanimously passed

This is a great bill - hope it influences the private sector.

[SoCalDem]

3. Be careful what you wish for.

computers in India are humming along 24/7, with outsourced jobs that used to be done here, but once companies figured out they did not need a body sitting at a desk and a real phone, that employee was sent home..but not to telework..just home..with no paycheck

[livetohike]

4. True - but I'm an optimist and I think this could make a big

difference in many workers lives. Years ago I had a two hour commute back and forth to work. It would have been nice to have been given this option to work at home.(But computers weren't even in the home back then. I'm old). It's a step in the right direction, I think.