City workers opposed to Mayor Parker’s return-to-office policy get their day in court
Employees testified that the policy would force them to reconsider working for the city and raised concerns that it would worsen the city’s understaffing crisis.
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City workers opposed to Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s mandate that all municipal employees return to in-person work five days a week argued in court Thursday that the administration doesn’t have the right to implement the policy without negotiating with municipal unions.
“The city is illegally imposing an enormous disruption on the lives of thousands of workers and exacerbating a vacancy crisis,” said Samuel H. Datlof, an attorney representing a union for city workers in a lawsuit that seeks to block the policy from taking effect Monday. “Thousands of union members made decisions based on the fact that their collective bargaining agreements allowed for remote work. Some of these decisions are long-term and nearly irreversible.”
The suit was brought by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees District Council 47, which represents white-collar city employees such as social workers and Water Department engineers and has about 3,700 members.
Common Pleas Court Judge Sierra L. Thomas-Street adjourned the hearing after hours of testimony Thursday. More witnesses were scheduled to speak Friday before Thomas-Street makes a ruling on the union’s request for an emergency injunction against the policy’s implementation on Monday.
The union argued in part that the policy was subject to collective bargaining because former Mayor Jim Kenney’s administration worked with unions to develop remote work policies following the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.
But Parker administration lawyers argued that labor law and the city’s union contracts allow management to change employees’ work locations without collective bargaining. They pushed back on the notion that the Kenney administration’s consultations with unions constituted bargaining, noting that the purpose of those talks was to produce recommendations, not negotiate contracts.
“The return-to-office policy is a change in work location, not in work schedule, and the city has the right to change work location,” assistant city solicitor Megan Malone said. “D.C. 47 knows this.”
Scores of union members and administration officials, including all of Parker’s top aides, showed up to the hearing, leading Thomas-Street to move the proceeding to a larger courtroom in City Hall.
Several D.C. 47 members testified that they would experience hardships if they were forced to return to the office full time. An investigator in the Office of Worker Protection, for instance, said it would impact her ability to care for her 5-year-old daughter with an autism spectrum disorder. An administrative technician said she took a pay cut for her current job because it offered a hybrid schedule.
Several said the policy would force them to reconsider working for the city, and raised concerns that it would worsen the city’s understaffing crisis, with 17.3% of the city’s full-time jobs unfilled as of March 31.
Under Kenney’s policy, which is currently still in place, department heads are allowed to set work location rules for their staffs, and many employees have hybrid schedules with three days in the office and two days of remote work.
Many government jobs now offer similar arrangements, and no other city in the Northeast has required all employees to return to the office full time since the pandemic.
About 80% of city workers, including police officers and trash collectors, are already working in-person full time because their work doesn’t allow for telecommuting, according to the administration.
In a news conference Wednesday, Parker vowed to stand by her policy despite pushback, saying it was necessary to bolster the Center City economy by bringing the city’s office workers back downtown and to provide equity for those whose jobs cannot be done remotely.
“I made a decision that I stand by firmly, and that is — in order to make good on [my] promise to [voters] — that I needed Philadelphia’s municipal workforce to return to office to provide valuable supports and services to you, the taxpayers of the city of Philadelphia,” Parker said. “I need us all right now to make a sacrifice for our city.”