California Governor Orders Return to Office, Recruits Former Federal Workers for State Jobs

California’s largest public sector union said the return-to-office policy is unnecessary and will put a financial strain on state employees.

California Governor Gavin Newsom speaks in Los Angeles on Sep. 25, 2024. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

California Governor Gavin Newsom on March 3 ordered state employees to work at least four in-office days per week starting July 1.

“In-person work makes us all stronger—period,” Newsom said in a statement Monday.

Newsom said the new mandatory work policy would strengthen oversight and accountability, increase responsiveness and coordination, and lead to more effective decision-making.

California has 224,000 full-time state workers, Newsom’s executive order said. More than half continued to report to work in-person every day despite the pandemic, and many others have returned to full time in-person work, including peace officers, health care workers, maintenance workers, and safety inspectors.

The executive order allows for case-by-case remote work exceptions.

California was the first in the nation to declare a stay-at-home order, effective March 19, 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The work-from-home model has since blossomed, becoming widely adopted by both public and private sectors, statewide, nationwide and worldwide.

One of the many executive orders President Trump signed on his return to the White House was a mandatory order requiring all federal workers to immediately return to full-time, in-person work.

Service Employees International Union Local (SEIU) Local 1000, the largest public sector union in California, representing 96,000 state employees, said in a statement on March 3 that Newsom’s order is “out of touch, unnecessary, and a step backward.”

The labor union said many of its members, including nurses and custodians, never had the option to work from home even during the COVID-19 pandemic. “But that doesn’t mean we should ignore the realities of modern work for those whose jobs can be done effectively in a hybrid setting.”

SEIU Local 1000 claimed the return-to-office (RTO) policy would put “financial strain” on state employees and accused it of “political posturing at workers’ expense.”

The Epoch Times reached out to Newsom’s office for comment but did not hear back by time of publication.

San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie recently ordered city workers back to the office a minimum of four days per week.

According to the most recent quarterly Flex Index report, released on Dec. 3, 2024, more U.S. workplaces are adopting structured hybrid models, where employees are required to be in the office for a certain amount of time instead of full time.

The report estimated that for the fourth quarter of last year, 43 percent of workplaces used various structured hybrid models, up from 38 percent the previous quarter, and up from 20 percent from the first quarter of 2023.

Newsom also ordered CalHR, the state’s human resource department, to streamline the hiring process for former federal workers seeking state jobs in specific areas such as firefighting, forest services, weather forecasting, medical and mental health care, and sciences.

“Recent actions by the federal government to reduce the size of the federal workforce and eliminate jobs for federal civil servants with expertise that would benefit the State create opportunities to fill unmet needs in the State workforce,” the executive order said.

California is not alone in trying to recruit federal workers for state jobs. The state of New York recently launched an advertising campaign aimed at federal employees who were laid off amid the Trump administration’s efforts to reduce the federal workforce.