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Civil Rights for Civil Servants
Hear Shaun Southworth and Lydia Taylor explain federal employee rights, public service, workplace systems, and the people navigating them.
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Labor Department to Recertify Every Approved Accommodation Each Year: What Employees Should Know
Your agency approved your reasonable accommodation. Can it make you prove you still need it every year? At the Department of Labor, the answer is now yes, and the process starts ne...
Would You Give Up a Raise to Keep Your Alternative Work Schedule? What the Survey and the Law Say
Would you give up a raise to keep your alternative work schedule? One federal employee told Federal News Network they would. The outlet's pulse survey, released October 13, 2026, d...
HHS Closes Accommodation Requests Over “Missing” Medical Records: Your 45-Day EEO Deadline
HHS is “administratively closing” reasonable accommodation requests over medical documentation it says it never received, and employees at the CDC and NIH say they have timestamped...
SSA Ends Alternative Work Schedules: What the Law Says and What to Do if Your Schedule Is an Accommodation
The Social Security Administration (SSA) has told its workforce that every 4/10 and 5/4/9 alternative work schedule is ending in mid-November, and the move raises real questions un...
Stalled Medical Telework Request? EEOC's Rule Gives Your Agency a Deadline
If your medical telework request has been sitting for weeks with no answer, or came back with a one-line "return-to-office applies to everyone," there is a rule that works in your ...
OPM Wants Your Medical Records: What the Health Claims Data Warehouse Means for Federal Employees
OPM wants claims-level health data on up to 8 million federal employees, retirees, and family members, and six senators want it to stop and explain itself first. The Office of Pers...
CDC Told Employees to Resend Accommodation Medical Records in 20 Days or Lose Their Case. Is That Legal?
Can your agency sit on your reasonable accommodation request for months, then tell you to resend your medical records in 20 days or lose your case and your interim accommodation? C...
Searched by Diagnosis Code: What the Pentagon's Medical Record Reviews Mean for Every Federal Employee's Confidential File
Federal employee medical privacy is suddenly a live question. Federal News Network reported this week that service members are being identified for separation through their electro...
USDA Says 64% Accepted Relocation. Employees Say the Accept Button Was Not a Choice.
USDA directed reassignments are back in federal court, and the number the department gave the judge is now in dispute. On August 28, a senior USDA official told the court that 725 ...
DOL Emailed Disability Accommodation Data to a Personal Inbox: What Affected Federal Employees Should Know
If you asked the Department of Labor for a disability accommodation, your name — and the reason you asked — may be sitting in somebody’s personal email inbox right now. That is wha...
The Labor Department Wants AI to Triage Disability Accommodation Requests
A reasonable accommodation request should be answered by a person who understands your job and your limitations. At the Department of Labor, nearly a thousand employees are waiting...
A Year After the CDC Shooting, Here Is What the Law Still Gives Federal Employees
Federal employees processing a traumatic event at work often assume the legal protections available to them ran out when the news coverage stopped. They did not. A year after a gun...
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