In the Charles Dickens’ classic, “A Christmas Carol,” three ghosts show up on Christmas Eve and go to work trying to convince Scrooge to change his ways.

That’s better in-person attendance than you can expect to find in a Washington, D.C. office these days. In fact, you’re more likely to spot a ghost haunting the halls of the headquarters of government agencies than a bureaucrat!

When asked to return to their jobs, government employees are responding: “Bah! Humbug.”

While President-elect Trump is promising to bring these Bah Humbug bureaucrats back to the office again, the lame duck president is attempting to circumvent that promise by extending their staycation from work for another four years…or longer!

Earlier this month, the Social Security Administration signed off on a contract cementing its current telework arrangement, requiring as few as two days a week in the office, for tens of thousands of agency employees until 2029.

The National Park Service also ratified a five-year contract making all positions eligible for telework and only required to report to the office one day a week.

The union representing the EPA workforce is seeking to extend its current arrangement allowing workers to show up just one day a week through 2030!

The government workers only showing up one day a week could learn a lot from a real public servant, Old Saint Nick. Santa works remotely just one day a year and is in his workshop at the North Pole the rest of the time making that one night magical for everyone. And through all of it, he stays jolly!

Nevertheless, union bosses are urging the White House to sign an executive order directing other agencies to pen the same sweetheart deals. If Biden wasn’t busy issuing pardons, he might just do it.

Folks, the one government employee who won’t have to worry about coming back into the office ever again after Jan. 20, 2025, is President Biden. But as for the millions of others on the public dole, they work for taxpayers … and soon, for President Trump, not the president of a labor union.

It may not seem that way since President Biden is giving millions of taxpayer dollars to the unions to help ink these deals. I’m demanding to know the true cost of this taxpayer-funded union time, so I can put an end to it.

The entire concept of public service is being perverted by public employee union bosses who forget the obligation of government workers is to serve the American people, not themselves.

So, in this season of giving, I am gifting my December 2024 Squeal Award to the government employee union bosses.

I am also calling on the Biden administration to stop these last-minute gifts to union bosses that keep on giving government workers time away from the office. If the bureaucrats don’t want to show up for work, President Trump is promising to make their wishes come true.

U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst, a Republican, represents Iowa.