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”?
Sounds catchy but that describes who should be a former employee, and one whose position won't be refilled.
For an actual employee, in a position that would remain filled, replacing them could easily cost 50% of their current salary and 6 months to 2 years to get their replacement spun up.
Starting about a fifteen years ago, I have witnessed more and more where a departed employee cannot be replaced by one individual. Some require 2-3 full time employees to replace them. Several are replaced with someone intended to take over 2/3 to 3/4 of the work, with the rest getting dropped on other employees with terrible results.
I've also witnessed work, such as quality control, get left unfilled when the expert leaves or retires. The company can't find a replacement and tries to stick the tasks on others who don't have the mindset or knowledge. The results are increasingly worsening. I point out the Boeing aircraft that had a hatch blow out because the technicians assembled the hatch improperly and the inspectors didn't catch it. I also point out the destruction of the Francis Scott Key bridge in the Chesapeake, where a known fuel pump problem was unresolved. The result of that was several deaths, loss of a bridge valued at $6B and climbing, and economic loss of $5B and climbing. But the ship owners saved money on payroll...
Oh no, they’re threatening us with a good time again.
A late ping to a Daniel greenfield article, in case you missed it.
Ping out to the Daniel Greenfield Ping! list.
As always, please FReepmail me if you want on or off the esteemed Daniel Greenfield ping list.
Daniel Greenfield's website: The Sultan Knish blog
“Dilbertonian nonsense” - did you coin that? Perfect term.
I think I’ve seen the term somewhere, years ago.
Oh please.
You could randomly fire every second State worker in California and no one would know the difference.
L
Possibly, but as I've commented several times on this thread, this article is not about layoffs.
Fired, quit, laid off, whatever.
As long as they’re gone.
L
So, the ends justifies the means.
Most management is simply too lazy to identify such workers. My daughter's company allows WFH two days per week. The company for which I worked allowed two to five days per week depending on the employee and the nature of your duties.
Some people are such marginal workers that they need constant supervision on site. Others (particular the task driven nerdy type like me) need none. It is actually easy to determine who should and who shouldn't. It is called results.
Are these “workers” being executed?
No. They’re being told to drag their lazy asses back to the office. If that’s too great of a burden they can find employment elsewhere.
L
Yeah... that's the False Dichotomy fallacy. It's also the Worst Negates the Bad fallacy.
They’re being told to drag their lazy asses back to the office.
It's a false assumption that they're lazy. They might be productive and fully aware that their productivity will drop in an office.
If they're not doing their work, then fire them. That has nothing to do with remote work.
It's also a false assumption that they'd be going back to an office. Many of them were hired after the Scamdemic lockdowns began and never worked in the office to begin with. I know quite a few people in that situation. The farthest distance I've witnessed is a Texan working remotely for a DC agency. They're not lazy and they're not commuting to an office they never worked in, especially at that distance.
Before I clicked, I was already laughing that this was their story.
Reminds me of Jerry Lewis’s last movie, Hardly Working, where he plays a carnival clown and his brother in law who’s a postmaster gets him a job in his post office. An iconic line from that movie, “Remember, Jerry. Nobody but NOBODY loses their job at the post office unless they really want to”.
Oy vey!
Not according to a bunch of FReepers (Boomers btw).
Not just boomers. Lots of people feel ENTITLED to work from home and they will attack anyone who says different.
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