Dear Sirs,
Please do not point the blame for no longer being able to work from home on the unions. The city has never reached out to request or negotiate or even discuss the continued opportunities to allow staff to continue to work from home.It is disingenuous on your part. Of course the unions are willing to allow our members to continue to work from home. If the city stating that it is the union is to blame I demand you withdraw your statement. Let me make it clear that SENA is willing to sit down at any time to discuss this issue. Please do not give our members the idea that SENA is responsible.”
- City’s Broadcast Message
- “The City is committed to finding ways to provide flexible work opportunities to our employees while still maintaining our commitment to equity and inclusion of all diverse perspectives and needs represented throughout our workforce. We understand and respect the importance of this issue, and will be addressing it directly through the work of the City’s Future of Work Task Force. The Task Force has already started meeting and will provide several opportunities for employees to share their opinions and ideas about this and other topics as it meets throughout the summer and then provides a report of written recommendations to the Mayor for formal adoption”
“As a party to collective bargaining agreements with over 30 unions that represent over 80% of the City’s workforce, the City has a legal obligation to comply with those contracts unless and until they are modified. The City cannot unilaterally impose this type of contract change, like a work from home or flexible schedule policy. We must instead negotiate all necessary contract language changes including rules and accountability measures with each of our union partners. We were able to allow for remote work during the pandemic only because of the Governor’s issuance of the State of Emergency Order, which is no longer in effect.”
I look forward to your response.
Joseph Smith
President SENA 9158