Last month, Gov. Gavin Newsom sent around a memo notifying his cabinet secretaries that it was time for state workers to return to the office at least four days a week. Newsom had attempted to do this a year ago but the unions negotiated a one-year delay.
The memo sent to Cabinet Secretaries says employees from all departments should return to work in person for a minimum of four-days per week with remote work limited to one day, beginning July 1. Last year, CalHR negotiated agreements with the unions to delay the implementation of the return-to-office order.
Since then, unions have been trying all sorts of things to push back. But one union in particular has come up with something creative. They are accusing Newsom of violating the state's environmental laws by forcing employees to drive to work.
The letter from CASE, a labor group that represents attorneys, administrative law judges and hearing officers employed by state agencies, argued that the mandate “will result in significant environmental impacts,” and promised legal action if the state doesn’t conduct such an environmental review.
“Clearly, the state’s blanket mandate that more than 90,000 workers commute to offices four days a week will impact California’s environment,” Richard Drury, an attorney representing CASE, said in a statement. “But no environmental impact report for this project exists. We are asking the state to complete the report its own laws require before moving forward.”
The letter argued that the four-day return to office “will require hundreds of thousands of additional monthly commutes by state workers, creating hundreds of thousands of new car trips and thousands of tons of additional air pollution from automobile tailpipes.”
If you're thinking this can't possibly be real well...welcome to California where everything requires consultation with unions and an environmental review. This is literally one major reason why California still doesn't have a bullet-train despite decades of funding.
No one believes the unions really care about emissions. CEQA is just a convenient way to throw sand in the gears of this decision which is forcing employees back to the office. But the fact that this is a farce doesn't mean it won't work in California courts. This is how things don't get done in the Golden State.
Using CEQA to fight returning to the office isn’t even the most egregious abuse of this law. Litigation can be brought by third parties. It frequently drags out for years, running up huge legal bills that lead to higher prices for everything from housing to electricity.
“Neighbors in Berkeley delayed construction of a new UC dormitory for three years, claiming the students would create noise pollution,” the Bay Area News Group reported in April. “Neighbors sued to block the construction of a food pantry in Alameda two years ago, saying it was on a ‘historic parking lot.’ In San Jose in 2012, the owner of a gas station sued under CEQA when a competing gas station across the street attempted to add four new pumps, delaying the project for three years and costing its owner thousands of dollars in legal fees.”
The SEIU had also been fighting this fight. In March it began demanding all sorts of things in order to get state workers back to the office. Here's a list they posted on their website.
🧑💻 100% Full-Time Telework
The State shall have the burden to demonstrate, by clear and compelling evidence, why the employee is unable to perform the essential duties and functions of their job 100% remotely.📍Accessible Parking at No Cost
ALL state employees required to report in person will be provided with a parking spot at their worksite at no cost.🚗 Commuter Stipend
A daily stipend of $25 for ALL employees who work and/or live in areas where public transit is not readily available.💰 High Crime Worksite Stipend
A $500 monthly stipend will be provided for employees required to work in “high crime” worksite locations.💜 Clean Workspaces
For employees required to report in person, the state must provide evidence that there is adequate office space, a regular schedule of deep cleanings for workstations, and confirm the availability of PPE.🏙️ Statewide Investment in Local Downtown Economies and Small Businesses
A daily $25 stipend for ALL employees required to work in-person to support Governor Newsom’s aspiration and objective to use the state workforce to bolster, supplement, and otherwise invest in downtown economies and local businesses.
As a former federal bureaucrat, I'm uniquely qualified to translate these demands out of bureaucratese and into standard English. Here's what they want.
- The state has to prove you can't do your work from home in order to make you come to the office.
- Free parking.
- $25 a day for gas money.
- $500 a month for anyone working downtown.
- Someone needs to deep clean the keyboards so employees don't have to touch anything already touched by other creepy state employees.
- $25 a day for lunch or whatever else the employee wants to spend it on.
When Newsom sent out his memo last month demanding everyone go back to the office, the SEIU immediately filed a claim with a state agency saying Newsom had unlawfully made a change to working conditions without negotiating with the union. You can read the whole thing here.
Of course no one complained when the state told all those workers to start working from home during the pandemic. They were happy about that change and have been fighting to preserve it ever since.
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