was supportive<\/a> of the governor\u2019s mandates for state workers to return to working Downtown. It is unclear if the mayor\u2019s stance has changed.<\/p>\n\u2018The nature of work has changed\u2019<\/p>\n
When Gina Garcia-Smith sits at her desk at the California Department of Education, it\u2019s not unusual for her and her colleagues to be stuck in Zoom meetings for much of the day.<\/p>\n
She currently works from the office three days a week and is hoping the legislative effort will make remote work a more permanent fixture.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reality is that the nature of work has changed,\u201d Garcia-Smith said.<\/p>\n
Garcia-Smith, a member of SEIU Local 1000, said costs of parking Downtown weigh heavily on workers and that inflation has made it difficult for many to afford going out to eat as frequently as they used to. She said telework policies could also help with recruitment.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hate to sound harsh but that\u2019s not the problem of our employees,\u201d said Anica Walls, president of SEIU Local 1000. \u201cIt\u2019s not our job to make sure the businesses in Downtown thrive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Walls added that if workers are required to go back into the office, the union could demand higher wages to compensate for added employee costs for parking, transportation and child care.<\/p>\n
Downtown offices continue to struggle<\/p>\n
More than 100,000 people worked in Downtown Sacramento before the pandemic. Now, that number is only at about 60% of its pre-pandemic high, according to the Downtown Sacramento Partnership.<\/p>\n
Michael Ault, executive director of the organization, is still advocating to put state workers in offices four days a week.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe would love to see the employees come back as much as we can,\u201d Ault said.<\/p>\n
While he recognized that many workers enjoy the flexibility of remote and hybrid work, he said that the lack of public employees Downtown has noticeably hurt small businesses.<\/p>\n
Downtown businesses leaders like Ault continue to point to the recent Sacramento State efforts, as well as momentum in the Downtown Railyards for a new hospital, soccer stadium and entertainment center that are under way.<\/p>\n
Having more public employees Downtown \u201caccelerates everything we\u2019re trying to build,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOffice (work) is critical. It\u2019s the heart and soul of this district, but we\u2019ve got to diversify,\u201d Ault said.<\/p>\n
Felicia Alvarez is a reporter at Abridged covering accountability. She\u2019s called Sacramento home since 2015 and has reported on government, health care and breaking news topics for both local and national news outlets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Abridged version: Five politically powerful labor unions are backing efforts to make remote work more permanent for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181448,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[121,123,122],"class_list":{"0":"post-181447","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sacramento","8":"tag-sacramento","9":"tag-sacramento-headlines","10":"tag-sacramento-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181447\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}