1. City Council President Sara Nelson told legislative staffers this week that they will be required to work in the office four days a week, rather than the two-day citywide minimum, starting on June 24.
“Councilmembers have reported to me that they are most productive when the staff who support them are available for in-person meetings and impromptu consultations,” Nelson wrote in a memo to staff. “Moreover, professional relationships, which are essential for a legislative body to thrive, are best developed and maintained in an atmosphere where key staff are available onsite for direct person-to-person contact, whether scheduled or serendipitous.”
“Given the significant advantages associated with being in the office, and after lengthy consultation with my fellow Councilmembers and Legislative Department division heads, I am writing today to announce that the Legislative Department will be transitioning to an increased in-office presence of four days a week to more effectively meet internal and external business needs,” Nelson wrote. “This new policy will acknowledge the specific circumstances of individual employees and their roles in the Department, and each supervisor will have the flexibility to address such circumstances, on a case-by-case basis.”
PubliCola asked Nelson whether there was data to back up the statement that working from an office has “significant advantages” for legislative staff, but has not heard back yet. A number of legislative employees, including the city clerk’s office, have unionized over the past few years; one issue clerk’s office raised in their union drive was a new requirement that they commute to downtown Seattle two days a week regardless of their job duties, how far away they live, or whether they could do their jobs more effectively from home.
Although Nelson and Mayor Bruce Harrell have suggested that downtown recovery depends on city employees coming back to their offices and spending money in the area, the cost to city employees isn’t just the price of lunch. The pandemic made many workers aware of how much unpaid time they lose to daily commutes, and many discovered they were more productive when they worked from home. Adding cars to the roads also counteracts the city’s climate efforts, and works against efforts to achieve Vision Zero—the city’s goal of zero traffic deaths or serious injuries by 2030.
It’s unclear whether the return-to-office mandate is a working condition that will require additional bargaining for unionized legislative employees. Nelson’s memo says “a policy change of this nature should not be implemented without the Department’s leadership engaging in discussions with PROTEC-17, which represents staff across the Department”—though not individual council members’ staff.
PubliCola reached out to PROTEC17 and Nelson and will update this post if we hear back.
2. City employees and their unions have expressed dismay over the slow timeline for their retroactive pay increases, which represent back pay for 2023 and 2024. As PubliCola reported earlier this week, thousands of workers finally got a contract earlier this month, but won’t see their retroactive wages until October. According to emails HR managers sent to employees in various city departments Monday morning, the delay is purportedly related to the implementation of Workday, the city’s new payroll and finance system. City employees will receive the regular pay increases included in the contract, which amount to a total of 9.5 percent, next month.
However, a spokeswoman for the city’s finance office, Julie Johnson, confirmed that at least two groups of employees—unionized Seattle Fire Department employees and library staff—will get their retroactive pay on May 31. ‘For library staff, this is because the agreement is signed by the Library Board of Trustees, not City Council, and thus can be implemented earlier than the [Coalition of City Unions[ legislation,” Johnson said. “For fire department staff, this is because Local 27’s agreement was legislated earlier this year so can be completed in May prior to the City moving off of our current system and onto Workday.”
In an email to members, Local 17, which represents about 3,000 city employees, said Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office “acknowledges the fall date is a problem, and is actively working to move the timeline forward.” A spokesman for the mayor, Jamie Housen, said the mayor’s office is “continuing to work with labor partners, the Office of Finance, and the Seattle Department of Human Resources to ensure wage adjustments are made and retroactive pay is paid as quickly as possible.”
It would have been great if the City did not hold off with their first offer until nearly the end of March 2023, then they stayed on 1% COLA UNTIL the mayor went to an event and said the employees deserved more. But, the day after the mayor signed the agreement, they announced almost immediately after that they were “delaying retro pay DUE to the new HIS” being installed, yet we SFD and SPL are getting their retro pay and they had no problem setting our 2023 COLA for this pay period and next pay period the 2024 COLA portion will be input. That happened within WEEKS of the signing, go figure, eh?
It would have been great if the City did not hold off with their first offer until nearly the end of March 2023, then they stayed on 1% COLA UNTIL the mayor went to an event and said the employees deserved more. But, the day after the mayor signed the agreement, they announced almost immediately after that they were “delaying retro pay DUE to the new HIS” being installed, yet we SFD and SPL are getting their retro pay and they had no problem setting our 2023 COLA for this pay period and next pay period the 2024 COLA portion will be input. That happened within WEEKS of the signing, go figure, eh?
Good for Council President Sara Nelson. Now, if Mayor Harrell would man up and demand the same from other city employees, our citizens might finally get the service they are paying for.
As others noted, if they don’t like working in office, they can quit. There are plenty of jobs out there.
It would be really nice if, we actually had more frequent transit service before mandating return to work (Or reimbursing workers for parking)
It may be a chicken/egg issue– but for people have to rely on Seattle’s craptacular transit system (which included cutting express bus routes and not returning to pre-pandemic frequency), it involves taking leave because the bus is late in the morning or taking leave to catch the last bus out of downtown (if it shows up).
Public employees are paid with public funds. A collapse of the commercial real estate market in downtown seattle cripples the city budget with the loss of real estate transfer taxes, property tax losses, construction permit losses.
Erica, if you’re going to bemoan the city’s budget deficit and the council’s hesitancy to consider additional progressive revenue sources, it’s hypocritical to excuse public workers from a requirement to report to work. No more defensible for you to take that off the table while you bash the Council majority for taking revenue off the table. Its hypocritical and inconsistent.
Public employees do have a different responsibility to help contribute to the recovery of downtown.
And public employees should be where the public expects them to be.
Bar and restaurant workers had to go back to work. Grocery workers had to go back to work. Teachers had to go back to work. Mechanics, doctors, movie theater, and on and on and on.
Don’t like it? Quit.
Well, that’s an astonishingly stupid response, my dude. You cannot tend bar or bus tables remotely. You can’t stock grocery shelves remotely, et cetera. You know what you _can_ do remotely? Legislative research and policy work. There’s nothing magical about being in the office. In fact, working remotely brings many benefits such as fewer coworkers coming round to interrupt your work, fewer microaggressions, fewer wearisome interactions with the office boor, and so on. The only people who seem pressed about remote work are the office boors, the low-key racists, homophobes, and sexists who miss being awful to their coworkers in person, the people who conflate their work and personal lives, the heteros who hate their families, and the managers who miss being able to pretend like they’re worth their salaries by micromanaging their staff. How’s that boot taste?
@GenX Cynic – yes, much work can be done remotely, but public service reduced to logging in remotely from Anywhere USA (or abroad!) doesn’t sit well with me. Why shouldn’t taxpayers receive some of the regenerative impact of workers being in the local labor pool, or economy? Why shouldn’t workers experience the same challenges constituents face downtown or out in the community? It’s a short-sighted view that sees work as simply surviving your colleagues or manager at the office.
@Hmmm seems to be missing the point that these workers are already in the office two days a week and are not “logging in remotely from Anywhere USA (or abroad).” People have accepted city positions in the last four years under the current hybrid conditions, and they will quit rather than commute four days a week from Pierce or Snohomish County. And good luck replacing them when similar jobs in the private sector are offering actual remote work. There’s such a weird vibe of “public employees should have shitty jobs because they work for me.” If you want good public service, treat public employees like humans (instead of political pawns) so all the competent people don’t leave.
If work from home has been negotiatied with the union, it has to be bargained over. (That’s why we can’t fire bad cops like Dave or Auderer (and they get raises instead)—SPOG manages to strike a hard bargain to protect them).
Mayor Durken tried this and it was shut down quickly and negotiated to the 2 days per week minimum.