California state employees now face a return-to-office rule that millions of private-sector employees already know as “going to work.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom to California agencies: Get ready for a four-day return to office https://t.co/hvoazG71Lw
— The Sacramento Bee (@sacbee_news) May 16, 2026
Gov. Gavin Newsom directed state agencies to prepare for in-person work four days each week starting July 1.
Daily Caller shares the sordid details.
California’s state workforce is bracing for a fight after Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom told government employees their telework days are nearly over.A memo sent by Cabinet Secretary Nani Coloretti instructs agencies to put workers behind their desks four days a week starting July 1, with a single remote day permitted, according to the New York Post (NYP). The directive enforces Executive Order N-22-25, which unions managed to stall through bargaining last year. Newsom warned that office space shortages will not buy departments any more time, claiming 98% already have room to seat returning staff.
The governor laid out his case for the policy when he first signed the order. “In-person work makes us all stronger — period. When we work together, collaboration improves, innovation thrives, and accountability increases,” Newsom said in a press release from his office. California employs more than 224,000 full-time workers, over half of whom already report in person daily.
Most covered employees currently split time between home and agency offices, but the new plan reduces routine remote work to one day a week.
Newsom’s administration describes the shift as a way to improve collaboration, oversight, service, and accountability.
Nani Coloretti, cabinet secretary to Newsom, helped send the directive to department leaders. Roy Kennedy, deputy secretary of communications and external affairs for the governor, confirmed the memo speaks for itself, and the administration expects agencies to carry out the change.
The order also tells departments with ongoing space needs to make sure available workstations get used at least four days a week. In other words, California owns or leases plenty of desks, and the state would like employees to sit at them.
KCRA shares the heartbreaking response from a state worker.
“The email came out of left field. We were kind of anticipating it to come, but we just weren’t sure when. It was very straightforward, basically saying ‘July 1, you’re coming back to the office four days a week.’ With no type of explanation behind it. Just, ‘you’re just doing that,’” said Darrell Fusselman, a state worker.
The memo states that hybrid schedules involving telework cannot exceed one day per week.
“Change is hard. I’m empathetic. Everyone has unique criteria or circumstance. We try to accommodate for that,” Newsom said.
Anica Walls, president of SEIU Local 1000, has led union pushback against the order. The union represents nearly 100,000 state workers and, as the Sacramento Bee reports, filed an unfair labor practice charge over Newsom’s return-to-office policy.
Prior to last year’s negotiations, when the parties reached the deal to maintain the telework policy, unions had little leverage over this working condition. But since the Newsom administration used telework as a bargaining chip, SEIU Local 1000 hopes to push back against the return-to-office through the California Public Employment Relations Board.
SEIU Local 1000’s latest allegation follows a similar pattern that emerged this time last year, when various unions representing state workers accused the Newsom administration of violating the state’s Ralph C. Dills Act by imposing the return-to-office directive.
California’s labor board agreed with the state engineers unions’ claim that the state appeared to have “failed and refused to meet and confer in good faith.” Ultimately, several unions, including the Professional Engineers in California Government and SEIU Local 1000, filed lawsuits in Sacramento Superior Court against the Newsom administration. Those lawsuits were dropped when the state agreed to pause the return-to-office deadline last year.
Tuesday’s unfair practice charge accuses the state of “unlawfully limiting the scope of bargaining” by refusing to engage in negotiations with the union over mandatory subjects of bargaining, such as work location, schedules, and telework. By announcing a fixed four-day, in-person requirement and rejecting the union’s proposals without considering them, the state is interfering in SEIU Local 1000’s ability to represent its members, the PERB filing states.
Walls has argued that the mandate disrupts family schedules, raises costs, and ignores the benefits of telework. State workers have also complained about childcare, commuting, gas, parking, and changes to daily routines.
I’m thinking of a phrase, but a shorter response comes to mind: “Wah.”
Those complaints might sound more moving if millions of taxpayers hadn’t already returned to offices, job sites, schools, factories, hospitals, stores, and service counters a long time ago.
Private workers rarely get a press conference when their boss says the home-office experiment is over; they fill the tank, pack lunch, fight traffic, find childcare, show up, and do the job.
Many never left in the first place. Grocery workers, nurses, police officers, firefighters, truck drivers, warehouse crews, restaurant employees, and construction workers didn’t get to spend years debating whether the commute damaged their sense of balance.
They kept California functioning while government workers enjoyed the flexibility most people never received.
California taxpayers already pay for salaries, benefits, pensions, buildings, utilities, technology, and layers of management. They also have every right to expect efficient service from the public employees whose paychecks they fund.
A four-day office week doesn’t sound like tyranny; it sounds like Tuesday through Friday with a badge, a chair, and a calendar invite nobody wants to attend.
Newsom deserves very limited credit for holding the line, even if some unions respond like the state has ordered employees into a salt mine with bad lighting.
The timing deserves a raised eyebrow because Newsom is term-limited and can’t seek another consecutive term as governor in 2026, which makes courage easier to locate than it might’ve been a few years ago.
Remote work can make sense for certain jobs; no serious person denies that. Yet government service also depends on coordination, speed, supervision, and public confidence that someone actually remains accountable when the phone rings and the paperwork stalls.
The complaints reveal how large the expectation gap has grown since the pandemic. What started as an emergency measure became an entitlement for some workers and a headache for the people waiting on government services.
California doesn’t need another drawn-out labor sermon over office chairs; it needs public agencies that work. Four days in the office seems like a modest price for proving the state workforce still remembers where the desks are.
California’s return-to-office fight shows how quickly temporary pandemic habits became permanent expectations inside government. Taxpayers have carried the cost long enough, and public employees shouldn’t act stunned when the state asks them to show up where the work gets done. Join PJ Media VIP today and use promo code FIGHT for 60% off your subscription.
