Taxpayers and federal government employee managers finally have something in common.
Neither can tell if government "workers," are actually working.
Last July we explored a story in The Washington Free Beacon that revealed that during 2020 up to 90% of the paycheck collectors in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) failed to regularly show up for work.
HHS Secretary Brian Harrison thought that was an unusually obvious lack of productivity, even for a federal agency.
He commissioned a study which found 25% of HHS remote "workers," "neglected to log on to the agency's software suite, which includes their email, work files, video conference calls, and other applications needed to perform remote work, according to the internal documents."
One might say teleworking is Amazon.com's and online pornography’s best friend.
You can read about the entire insult to the taxpayer here.
Now the Beacon has done a follow-up story and unless you’re currently being pursued by the feds, the news isn’t good. "Four federal agencies told The Washington Free Beacon they have no specific oversight of remote employees: the Department of the Interior, Department of Defense, Department of Veterans Affairs, and Department of Housing and Urban Development."
That’s a total of 1,093,240 paycheck recipients — approximately the size of Montana — working on the honor system.
Or — the Swamp’s definition of the honor system.
In the private sector, the reaction to cruising the internet on company time policies was markedly different.
The Beacon found, "companies deployed technology to track employees' online behavior through their emails, browser activity, and use of other online work software.
"A survey of 1,250 employers in the United States last year found that 60% of respondents use some version of this online monitoring software for remote workers — and another 17% were considering adopting one."
This sounds like time for a punitive expedition from OSHA, but unfortunately for private sector workers being forced to actually work, OSHA is part of the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) and it’s another government bureau that claimed the "usual productivity measurements are adequate to track employees who shifted to remote work at the start of the pandemic."
Instead of being alarmed by this pandemic of widespread government employee inertia, the Biden administration "has pushed to make lenient pandemic telework policies permanent as agencies prepared to return to the office."
Naturally, a federal program that encourages imaginary work in exchange for real paychecks has the enthusiastic approval of the Swamp bureaucracy.
That means there should be no drop off in customer traffic at Starbucks, Dave & Busters, Hooters, and Deshaun Watson’s new chain of relaxation spas as our highly motivated federal "workforce" continues to teleloaf.
The only potential good news for conservatives is if Biden plans to expand telework to include the IRS. Remote "working" will serve to instantly reduce the impact of the 87,000 new agents the agency will be hiring in the near future to persecute those on the administration’s enemies list.
Michael Reagan, the eldest son of President Reagan, is a Newsmax TV analyst. A syndicated columnist and author, he chairs The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Michael is an in-demand speaker with Premiere speaker's bureau. Read Michael Reagan's Reports — More Here.
Michael R. Shannon is a commentator, researcher for the League of American Voters, and an award-winning political and advertising consultant with nationwide and international experience. He is author of "Conservative Christian's Guidebook for Living in Secular Times (Now with added humor!)" Read Michael Shannon's Reports — More Here.