State Employees are demanding a seat at the bargaining table in response to an executive order issued by Governor Jim Pillen, ending remote work for state agency workers at the start of next year.
Governor Jim Pillen issued Executive Order (EO) 23-17 earlier this month, which effectively ends remote work for state employees on January 2, 2024. The Nebraska Association of Public Employees (NAPE/AFSCME Local 61), representing over 8,000 State of Nebraska employees, has filed a demand to bargain.
NAPE’s Executive Director Justin Hubly told KLIN News, the vast majority of state employees have been working in-person since the COVID-19 pandemic, “But there are still a number of employees, a critical group of employees, who are working some days of the week in-office and some days remotely. From our perspective, work has been getting done. We haven’t seen widespread inefficiency issues. So it was surprising when Governor Pillen, unilaterally and without warning, decided to bring everybody back.”
In addition to being potentially unnecessary, NAPE is also taking cross with Gov. Pillen’s EO from a procedural standpoint. “While we respect the Governor’s right to have a preference,” said Hubly in an official statement, “the terms and conditions of employment are mandatory subjects of bargaining under both the Nebraska State Employees Collective Bargaining Act and the Industrial Relations Act,” said Justin Hubly, Executive Director of the union.
Hubly explained further to KLIN News, “Our contract contains a clause that says the employer (the state) agrees not to implement changes unilaterally to the terms and conditions of work that fall outside the scope of the contract… and in fact, remote work is not covered in the contract. It is our opinion that our contract applies here, and it needs to be bargained with us.”
Hubly added, like many businesses, state agencies have been critically short staffed, and working remotely has been beneficial for retaining employees, “If the Governor is to unilaterally say, ‘You all have to come back,’ and we lose a critical mass of employees… that’s going to affect our neighbors, our fellow Nebraskans.”
Monday, November 27th, NAPE sent a formal demand to bargain to the Governor’s chief negotiator. NAPE has given the state until December 12th, to respond.
“We want the law to be respected,” Hubly leveled, “We want our contract respected. We don’t believe that the governor has a right to unilaterally do this. We want to sit down and bargain. I’m sure we can come up with good contract language, that’s beneficial for everybody.”