U.S. lawmakers' return-to-office push faces resistance from gov't employees, unions

NEW YORK, July 1 (Xinhua) -- U.S. lawmakers have been beefing up efforts to end remote work across the country ever since the COVID-19 pandemic ended, but their push was met with resistance from government workers and unions, according to recent media reports.

Just under half of all federal workers now show up in their offices in Washington, D.C., down somewhat from before the pandemic, The Washington Post wrote recently in an opinion, citing card-swipe tallies by security solutions provider Kastle Systems.

"The numbers for public employees alone are devastating: Only 6 percent of federal workers are working full-time in their offices; 30 percent are fully remote ... Some agencies are using less than 10 percent of their space," it wrote, citing a Federal News Network survey published in late April.

It has been a very similar picture at the state and local level. For example, ABC7 News said in a recent report that there are still some 240,000 state employees in California working from home full-time, although the stay-at-home order was lifted some three years ago.

Back in 2022, U.S. President Joe Biden promised in his State of the Union address that "the vast majority of federal workers will once again work in person." In August 2023, Jeff Zients, Biden's chief of staff, told federal agencies to "aggressively execute" a pivot back to in-person work. In May, U.S. Senators Mitt Romney and Joe Manchin introduced the Back to Work Act of 2024, a bipartisan legislation to require employees of federal agencies to return to work in-person at least 60 percent of the time.

At the state and local level, Governor of California Gavin Newsom's new policy set in April requires state employees to work in-office at least two days a week starting from June 17. Meanwhile, Cherelle Parker, mayor of Philadelphia, has required all city workers to make a full-time return to the office starting from July 15.

The return-to-office progress remains glacial not only because some government employees have been used to the long-time ease and comfort of working at home, but also because a few unions have strongly opposed the push.

In late May, "the union that represents workers with the federal Economic Development Administration sent a letter warning that further mandates for spending more time in the office would lead to greater turnover and understaffing," said a recent report by Governing website.

Government employees "worked heroically throughout the pandemic. The idea that they have to go into the office to please Jeff Zients is absurd," Jacqueline Simon, policy director of the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union of federal government workers, told The Washington Post.