Judge denies CA state worker union’s request to block Newsom’s RTO order
An Alameda Superior Court judge on Monday denied a state worker union’s request to block Gov. Gavin Newsom’s return-to-office order.
The union representing state attorneys filed a lawsuit earlier this month alleging state agencies ran afoul of the California Environmental Quality Act for not completing environmental impact reports before calling state workers back to offices four days a week.
The union, the California Attorneys Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment, argued that Newsom’s return-to-office order would harm the state’s environment by forcing workers to commute more frequently, and emit more carbon emissions into the atmosphere.
In an order denying the union’s request for an injunction, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Rebekah Evenson found that state agencies’ telework policies are not subject to the state’s landmark environmental law, known as CEQA.
“While the Court acknowledges that the return-to-office policies will likely inconvenience some employees, the Executive Order grants agencies and departments flexibility to address and ameliorate those impacts, so the extent of any inconvenience is uncertain. In any event, because this is a CEQA petition, the pertinent harms are not inconvenience to state employees, but the environmental impacts of the challenged ‘policies,’” Evenson wrote.
Based on her preliminary review of the case, the judge noted that not all departments are requiring state employees to return to offices four days a week and not all workers will commute using gas-powered vehicles, so the environmental impact is likely to be less than what the union estimated as part of its initial complaint.
“We’re disappointed with today’s decision,” CASE’s president Talene Ghazarian said in a Monday statement. “We disagree with the Court about the timing of our suit and the harm the State will cause.”
Ghazarian said that the 90,000 state workers who are subject to the return-to-office order will have an impact on the state’s environment, but that the Newsom administration has not begun the process of analyzing those impacts.
“We’re hopeful Governor Newsom will look at the data because it is clear: flexible work is better for the environment, better for taxpayers, and better for working families,” Ghazarian said.
The governor’s return-to-office order, which goes into effect Wednesday, has faced consistent and vocal pushback from state workers and their unions in recent months.
In addition to CASE’s lawsuit, the largest representative of state employees, SEIU Local 1000, has filed an unfair labor charge against the state with California’s labor board over the return-to-office policy change.
