Manager, AFSCME at odds over mandates to return to offices

The Covid-19 public health emergency officially ended on Thursday and interim City Manager Jesús Garza wasted no time in telling city employees that they need to spend a lot more time in the office now – no less than three days a week for most and five days a week for executives.

Garza sent a memo to all city employees on Thursday outlining new rules for office workers. According to the memo, all executives, including directors, deputy directors and assistant directors, are required to be in the office five days a week effective June 5.

“Nonexecutive staff that are eligible to telework are required to be in the office for a minimum of three days per week, allowing for 40 percent of the week to be utilized for telework; and alternate work schedules are allowed in conjunction with telework.”

Garza wrote, “I am focused on the organization’s commitment to high public service standards as well as excellence and reliability in service delivery. I am also a firm believer in working as one organization, with consistent practices across departments. My goal is to provide top-quality customer service to our residents and foster an organization where team-building is promoted.

“Foundational to my commitment is the reality that, unlike many other employers, we are primarily a public-facing organization. It is imperative, in my opinion, that we work to ensure the public’s trust. We cannot completely do so if we are not present or responsive to their needs. With this in mind, we must address the various department policies surrounding telework. It is difficult to establish and maintain consistency and reliability without a uniform set of standards. As with all of our personnel policies, we should have consistency that employees can rely on from one department to the next.”

Carol Guthrie, business manager for Local 1624 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the union representing city and county workers, said union leaders met with Garza on Wednesday to discuss the telework policy, arguing against his proposal to generally allow only two days of teleworking per week. She said he showed no interest in negotiating.

When the Austin Monitor asked Guthrie on Friday what kind of response the union had received about Garza’s telework plan, she said, “We have heard from a lot of people – at least several hundred,” calling, emailing and texting to say they disagree with Garza’s return to the office plan. “They only got the memo yesterday. Those calls have continued to come in all day. I knew people would be upset but I did not know they would be that upset.”

Garza added that Assistant City Manager Veronica Briseño had convened a working group to gather feedback on telework policies. After listening to that feedback, he said, he had arrived at the new policy.

Department directors will have to make some decisions about how to implement the policy. Garza noted there might be some exemptions “based on job function and industry standards.” But it is quite clear that Garza expects most employees to be in city offices at least three days a week.

He concluded by thanking the city manager’s office executive team, which has been working from the office on a daily basis for the past several months. He also thanked the city’s “hard-working front-line workers who never had the opportunity to work from home.”

Garza’s memo shows the city going in the opposite direction from Travis County, which is moving toward developing a policy that would have 75 percent of eligible employees working from home on a regular basis.

Following a meeting with Garza, members of AFSCME Local 1624 put out their response to his telework policy. They were dissatisfied with the manager’s position, to say the least.

In addition to disrupting employees’ current schedules, Guthrie said the city may not have enough work space to accommodate all employees being on-site at one time. Some employees are sharing desks with employees who come in at different times, she said. She also noted that one of the benefits from Travis County’s work-from-home policies is fewer cars on the road, less congestion and less pollution.

On its website, AFSCME objected to Garza’s proposal and the way it was developed. The union says the process for deciding how many employees could be teleworking on a permanent basis has been rushed, especially compared with the process used by Travis County. The county has been working to develop a permanent remote work policy with Deloitte to determine how many of its employees can regularly work remotely.

AFSCME said, “Determining eligibility for employees to be able to clock hours remotely is key and we do not believe the city has put in the time nor the effort to do this. Travis County is doing this work, and we are going to continue to suggest the city model their process after the county’s.”

The union promised “to fight this policy as it stands, and to deliver a better one.” AFSCME is currently sending its members a survey to get their take on remote work. Guthrie said she anticipates arguing the union’s case before the City Council. The most recent post on the union’s website concludes, “Our goal is to lift up your voices into the decision-making rooms so we do not end up with a top down policy created by and for management.”

Photo made available through a Creative Commons license.

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