Posted on 06/27/2026 2:14:59 AM PDT by Libloather
Gov. Gavin Newsom is barreling ahead with forcing California state workers back to the office, flatly rejecting calls to soften a return-to-work mandate that unions warn could trigger a “mass exodus” of employees.
Starting July 1, roughly 100,000 state workers will be required to report to the office or the field four days a week, leaving just one day for telework under Newsom’s long-delayed executive order.
Despite mounting backlash from organized labor and state employees, the governor made it clear there will be no retreat.
Asked directly whether he’d consider easing the four-day in-office requirement, Newsom didn’t blink.
“No chance.”
He doubled down moments later, on a call with KCRA saying, “It’s ridiculous, four days a week.”
The mandate is set to kick in next month as part of a broader implementation timeline tied to a previously delayed executive order.
The policy push comes as Newsom and Democratic lawmakers just finalized California’s budget, though the governor emphasized the return-to-office directive is not part of those negotiations.
The showdown is already escalating with SEIU Local 1000, the state’s largest employee union, which has warned the mandate could spark a wave of departures if enforced.
Union leadership argues workers have successfully kept state government running under hybrid schedules since the pandemic and see no justification for the stricter requirement.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
I’ve been working from home since COVID but its because my company HQ building had severe health related issues like mold and its too costly to remediate. If they mandate return to work, I would probably retire and was planning on doing so a couple years ago but realized that if I retire, I would still go somewhere to work to stay busy & realized, I can stay in my basement & continue to work. Its nice knowing I have options.
Not necessarily. During COVID the place I work along with many others found lots of remote employees well outside their normal range (300+ miles). The issue I see is if you then have a return to work mandate that includes those people. Do you pay them to relocate? If not, you’ll create resentments with those who do have to return because they’ll look at it as why can they contribute remotely and I can’t.
One large company where I live was consistently a best places to work insurance company but they built a multimillion dollar office right before COVID and after COVID, had everyone return to work. They’re no longer a best place to work company.
During COVID, my now deceased younger brother went into work everyday as his role was to execute large financial trades that the CFO was making and they wanted the transactions executed behind all the companies networking protections. He didn’t mind it as he and a handful of security guards were the only ones in the building.
Remote employees are easier to trace. Their IP address, their logins, multi-factor authentication, and every keystroke can be monitored and recorded for audits. Multi-factor authentication in particular is done each time the systems times out. Take a bathroom break, a lunch break, etc., and you need to reauthenticate to get access back into the system.
In person no-show jobs only require someone else swipe badges in at a building. (They don't even need to swipe out).
Some 30 years ago, a friend said that he’d heard that government unionss were upset about, and wanted restrictions removed, from PEDs at work. No, not performance enhancing drugs; rather, “personal entertainment devices.” That is, TVs on their desks. I thought this was hilarious, not prophetic.
At least then they weren’t arguing about whether occasionally showing up for work was necessary.
In the private sector, WFH is more relevant, because if you just FOFH (f**k off from home), profitability obviously suffers. A certain amount of office appearance may build some esprit de corps and help with on-boarding, but an extra 3 or 4 hours dressing up and commuting doesn’t help productivity.
The public sector is different. If you aren’t there, you might not even be noticed.
In person no-show jobs only require someone else swipe badges in at a building. (They don't even need to swipe out).
That assumes that you have a system where there are good faith people monitoring the remote employees to guarantee performance.
In California, the people in charge are complicit in the fraud in much the same way Minnesota and California officials are enabling many other forms of fraud.
This was not a rumor - it was a lame cover up excuse by local politicians to explain why there were about 750 fewer police on the force than there were on the payroll.
Of course there never were 750 police officers taking off to Vegas because there never were 750 officers - they were phantom workers and the New Orleans PD had to have an explanation why there far fewer police officers on the streets than the employment rolls showed.
REMINDER:
SEIU STARTED LIFE AS A JANITOR’S UNION...IN LA
The idiot shut down the state for a year… now he demands they come back to work.
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.