Environmental boards push for telework policy for city employees

Two city environmental panels have approved resolutions asking City Council to direct interim City Manager Jesús Garza to reconsider his proposed policy requiring most employees to do their jobs at the office three days a week.

Both the Environmental Commission and the Joint Sustainability Committee have recommended that employees be allowed to work from home on a regular basis in order to reduce air pollution.

Garza notified city employees in May that he expected all executives to start working from the office on a daily basis beginning June 5. He also stated that non-executive employees would be required to work from the office three days a week beginning on Oct. 1. After employee union AFSCME (American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees) Local 1624 saw Garza’s memo outlining the policy, its members immediately pushed back against the policy.

The Environmental Commission approved a resolution on June 11, and the Joint Sustainability Committee passed its resolution on June 28. Both resolutions address the city’s vision for net-zero emissions by 2040 – emphasizing a 50 percent reduction in car trips – and reference Travis County’s decision to enact a work-from-home policy for most of its workforce. The resolutions urged the city to follow suit.

Members of both commissions, as well as AFSCME, hope for a resolution from Council directing Garza to do a deep analysis of the environmental impact of employees driving to work versus working from home. Most Council members are on vacation this week, and none responded to a request for comment on the resolutions.

Michele Gonzalez, the city’s new strategic communications and external relations officer, told the Austin Monitor that city management already is studying the impact of bringing employees back to work versus allowing telework.

“As a response to the Joint Sustainability Committee and other commissions that have expressed concern about the change in the telework policy, it is very important to understand that while we want to bring people back to a collaborative space on an ongoing basis, we are doing an assessment of how many employees it would ultimately impact, and we’re not going to make any changes until that assessment is done,” Gonzalez told the Monitor, adding, “We do respect what the committees are saying and just want to assure them that we are undergoing that assessment.”

The assessment will take into account the commissions’ resolutions and concerns from AFSCME, she said, “and once we have gone through that, we will have a much better idea of the impact.”

Gonzalez said that the initial announcement from the city manager stated the changes would take effect in October. “We will make sure we will have answers prior to that time frame, in time for the start of the fiscal year … in August or September.”

Carol Guthrie, business manager for AFSCME Local 1624, told the Monitor in an earlier conversation that she thought the city manager would come to agree with the union’s position, at least on studying the question of who should come to the office and who should be allowed to work from home. At this point, the union still plans to ask Council to direct Garza to examine the full environmental, affordability and equity effects of returning to the office versus allowing most employees to telework.

Kaiba White, an environmentalist who chairs the Joint Sustainability Committee, noted that she added a section to that panel’s resolution asking Council to direct the manager to evaluate the benefits of encouraging city employees to work from home whenever possible, like when an Ozone Action Day is forecasted.

Last year, Austin experienced 25 Ozone Action days, more than the previous eight years combined.

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