Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Gov Workers Threaten “Mass Exodus” If They’re Forced to Work
Front Page Magazine ^ | 23 Jun, 2026 | Daniel Greenfield

Posted on 06/23/2026 7:42:06 AM PDT by MtnClimber

Oh no, they’re threatening us with a good time again.

California government workers, like a lot of federal, state and other workers, haven’t actually been working since the pandemic. Or rather they’ve been ‘working from home’ which is to say working even less than usual.

Now, California is considering asking them to go back to the office four days a week. And SEIU, a radical union that represents government workers, among other useless people, is pulling out all the stops and warning of a ‘mass exodus’.

“Since COVID we have been working and doing the jobs and being efficient and doing the jobs to keep California running,” said Anica Walls, the president of SEIU Local 1000, which represents state workers in Sacramento.

We have been working and doing the jobs and being efficient at working and doing the jobs which we are doing to keep running California… into the ground.

“I feel like there will be a mass exodus. I feel like the state needs to be ready for a mass exodus. We have individuals who have been teetering retirement, who look at this 4-days a week when they have been doing their job efficiently in a hybrid schedule will probably send them into a retirement,” Walls said.

A mass exodus? An exodus is when the slaves escape their masters. This would be the equivalent of the Egyptian taskmasters announcing that they don’t want to be slave masters anymore if they have to go into the fields to whip their slaves four times a week.

I’m not sure it really counts as an exodus when the people leaving are already a plague.

Anyway if these incredibly efficient government workers are forced to come into the office to pretend to work for four days a week, they’ll retire, at which point they can stop pretending, but will still gobble up taxpayer money.

Democratic Assemblyman Alex Lee, who authored the bill AB 1729, said the issue is critical for many state employees.

“I have heard from so many state workers from even the Bay Area all up and down the state who said this is the thing that matters the most to them,” Lee said. “They don’t want to move. They love their job, but they don’t, they aren’t willing to move after working 4-5 years in state service.”

They aren’t willing to move… because they’ve never ever shown up to work. They love their jobs… because they don’t do them.

Lee’s proposal also requires the state to establish an online dashboard to show how much taxpayer money is saved with telework. Lee and SEIU have estimated remote work saves the state up to $225 million a year.

A “mass exodus” of government workers however would save billions.

A billboard off a Sacramento highway warns of future traffic jams caused by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s order. State workers argue they have been working efficiently under hybrid schedules since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Will those traffic jams be from the “mass exodus”?


TOPICS: Society
KEYWORDS: california; danielgreenfield; greenfield; leftism; sultanknish
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-57 next last
To: MtnClimber

Before SEIU got into the government employee business, it unionized office cleaners and janitors. It’s curious that SEIU opposes return-to-office policies that would seem to serve the interests of their orogonal membership.

When employees stopped working in offices, were most of the cleaners laid off? Or paid to clean empty buildings? Or paid to stay home and clean there?


21 posted on 06/23/2026 8:56:49 AM PDT by Chewbarkah
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: faithhopecharity

let them work from home. let them work from Pluto if that would reduce their productivity even more so.>>. I agree. you are going to pay them no matter where they end up. plus there is an added bonus of sitting at home getting fatter and then dying early from heart disease, diabetes, etc. which will save money in the underfunded pension and ss systems.


22 posted on 06/23/2026 9:16:23 AM PDT by kvanbrunt2
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

Government Union Thugs. “We Ain’t Working and You Can’t Make Us.”


23 posted on 06/23/2026 9:21:13 AM PDT by FlingWingFlyer (No Kings in America! Defund and Abolish the Feral DemonRAT Judiciary NOW!!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

Government workers will NEVER “mass exodus” of their own free will

Its an absolutely empty threat from leftist government unions, to create the false impression that Government workers have “agency.”

Yes, they will “strike,” protest, or work-slow. But they will never leave.

Most are too lazy, too unskilled, too corrupt to do anything else. They will never leave their positions, because most don’t work terribly hard anyway and are counting the days until retirement.


24 posted on 06/23/2026 9:22:03 AM PDT by PGR88
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

I bet a foreign born Biden judge strikes down a “return to the office” order.


25 posted on 06/23/2026 9:31:52 AM PDT by Organic Panic
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

SEIU STARTED OUT AS A JANITORS UNION IN SO CALIF


26 posted on 06/23/2026 9:36:16 AM PDT by ridesthemiles (not giving up on TRUMP---EVER)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

My daughter is probably the exception to the rule. She has a very good work ethic. She still works from home two days a week and three in the office. She was telling me that sometimes at home she gets a lot more done because her boss is not constantly interrupting her and she’s able to get in the flow with some of these complicated contracts and projects she has to review and certify.

Her office is short an attorney so she’s having to do that job as well.

I won’t get into what she does except to say that seen a lot of it and it’s definitely over my head. And much of it can easily be done at home with a lot of conferencing and document reviews. Plus she still has to go out in the field for certain things.


27 posted on 06/23/2026 9:39:22 AM PDT by ChildOfThe60s (If you can remember the 60s, you weren't really there)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: T.B. Yoits

“The least expensive employee is one you already have.”

NOPE.

NOT EVEN CLOSE.

The LEAST expensive employee is one you can do without.
And this cabal is shot full of ones we can do without.

Government is overflowing with groups stocked with twice the needed headcount all working half as hard to maintain shortfalls in completed work that justify perpetually open reqs for more staff.

DOGE had the solution track dialed.
Everyone that shut that down should be twisting in a stiff breeze; standing under a tree with their Italian loafers off the ground.


28 posted on 06/23/2026 9:52:27 AM PDT by HKMk23 (https://youtu.be/LTseTg48568)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: ridesthemiles

Can the US government decertify a public union?

That union has always been a very leftist union.

Yes it is a state union but if decertified on a national level … maybe?


29 posted on 06/23/2026 9:54:24 AM PDT by texas booster (Join FreeRepublic's Folding@Home team (Team # 36120) Cure Alzheimer's!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]

To: texas booster

Time for the “bobs” frame saying what would you say you do here.


30 posted on 06/23/2026 10:00:12 AM PDT by Mouton (There is a new sheriff and deputy in town now! )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 29 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber; lightman; Navy Patriot

SEIU is supposed to represent janitors.

Back in the day, a group of us university faculty and administrators went to bat for janitors who cleaned our research labs when SEIU refused to do so!

Even since then, I’ve had little respect for SEIU!


31 posted on 06/23/2026 10:01:57 AM PDT by Honorary Serb (Kosovo is Serbia! Free Srpska! Abolish ICTY!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber
"And SEIU, a radical union that represents government workers, among other useless people, is pulling out all the stops and warning of a ‘mass exodus’."

Of course, the first response is, How would I notice?"

32 posted on 06/23/2026 10:03:47 AM PDT by Retain Mike ( Sat Cong)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

Excellent news...
Also, they will not be eligible for federal unemployment benefits...


33 posted on 06/23/2026 10:34:11 AM PDT by SuperLuminal (Where is rabble-rising Sam Adams now that we need him? Is his name Trump, now?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

34 posted on 06/23/2026 10:37:30 AM PDT by Frank Drebin (And don't ever let me catch you guys in America!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: PGR88

These govt worker slugs know they have the best job they will ever have. The working from home grift. You can’t get them out with dynamite. Most are DEI slugs, useless eaters.

(yes there are some gov’t workers who put in an honest days work. few n far between)


35 posted on 06/23/2026 10:45:56 AM PDT by dennisw (Qatarlson the Insufferable blowhard. There is no limit to human stupidity |||||||||||||||||||||||||)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]

To: dennisw
These govt worker slugs know they have the best job they will ever have. The working from home grift. You can’t get them out with dynamite. Most are DEI slugs, useless eaters.

I have to work with several stage agencies, and also have a close relative in our state's social-services branches, so I have some experience.

she is very much a woke-leftist, but is gobsmacked by how little work gets done in her agency (working with poverty/children). She tells me constantly of senior employees who come in late, spend their entire time chatting, then leave early. A few even have second, full-time jobs.

36 posted on 06/23/2026 11:08:14 AM PDT by PGR88
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 35 | View Replies]

To: kvanbrunt2

Ha!
It would be worth it just to stop having to listen to washedupDC politics always crying how Sociable Insecurity is always broke


37 posted on 06/23/2026 11:14:46 AM PDT by faithhopecharity ("Politicians aren't born, they're excreted." Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 to 43 BCE))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: No.6
You’re assuming that this “work” is a) wanted or needed and b) is actually being done today by SEIU unionists.

I'm assuming?

You assumed that it's not work.
You assumed that it's not wanted or needed.
You assumed that it's not being done.

The article isn't about layoffs. If they're looking at cutting staff from jobs that aren't needed or the employees aren't doing, find the article about that.

38 posted on 06/23/2026 11:22:17 AM PDT by T.B. Yoits
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: devane617
...ultimately I am a small gov type guy and my suggestion is to fire 80% of the at-home work staff and no one would ever know.

I can tell you firsthand that these government agencies have been reducing employees and due to the need to get work done are hiring consultants, many of whom work remotely. It started long before the Scamdemic.

39 posted on 06/23/2026 11:24:03 AM PDT by T.B. Yoits
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: No.6
“But only lifelong public employees can” (understand the useless BS government employees create) is a straw man at best.

Sadly, it's reality. And it's not just public employees. Several large companies such as Boeing and General Motors have lost decades of institutional knowledge and are paying the price.

Are you suffering today for lack of the ~350k fed employees no longer at their home desks?

This article is not about layoffs. If these California employees aren't needed, let's see that article.

Can you show me on the doll where it hurts? ;)

Ad hominem attacks don't make your argument. They only expose its weakness.

40 posted on 06/23/2026 11:34:09 AM PDT by T.B. Yoits
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-57 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson