California Government Unions Will Try Anything To Keep Their Members From Returning To The Office
California’s state government unions have found a new excuse for keeping government workers out of the office: the environment. You can't make this up.
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🕒 5 min read
The New Excuse
California is again facing a fight over whether state employees should return to government offices four days per week. Most Californians would consider that normal. Millions of private-sector workers returned to offices, job sites, stores, factories, hospitals, and workplaces years ago.
Not California’s state government unions.
This week, the union representing state attorneys and administrative law judges unveiled its latest strategy to block the state’s return-to-office policy. The union sent legal notices to more than 100 state departments, arguing that requiring employees to commute could increase carbon emissions and therefore trigger review under the California Environmental Quality Act.
Yes, really.
The same law that has spent decades delaying housing, infrastructure, and economic development is now being deployed to stop government employees from showing up to government offices.
You almost have to admire the creativity.
The Endless Resistance
This did not begin with CEQA.
Since state leaders first tried to increase in-office work, state government unions have fought at every turn. There have been lawsuits. Legislative proposals. Public relations campaigns. Even billboards warning that asking employees to report to work would increase traffic.
The message has been consistent: anything but returning to the office.
What makes the latest maneuver so revealing is that the unions are no longer even pretending this is mainly about productivity, collaboration, or public service. Instead, they argue that government workers driving to work constitutes an environmental crisis requiring legal intervention.
By that logic, every commute in California is an environmental problem. Every office building is an environmental problem. Every private-sector employer requiring attendance is an environmental problem.
Yet somehow the outrage becomes urgent only when state employees are asked to do what most Californians already do every day.
Why The Office Still Matters
What often gets lost in these debates is that returning to the office is not simply about enforcing attendance. It is about improving outcomes for workers, agencies, and taxpayers.
As an investment manager, commentator, and author, David Bahnsen argues in Full-Time: Work and the Meaning of Life that work is a collaborative human activity that provides purpose, development, and social connection. His case for returning to work is not merely about productivity metrics; it is about the value of people coming together to solve problems, mentor one another, build relationships, and contribute to institutions larger than themselves. Those benefits are difficult to replicate through scheduled video calls and chat applications.
Research increasingly points in the same direction. While remote work can be effective for certain tasks and certain employees, in-person environments strengthen collaboration, accelerate training, improve communication, and foster accountability. New employees learn faster. Managers can provide immediate guidance. Teams coordinate more efficiently.
These advantages matter even more in government, where taxpayers fund both the workforce and the office space. Californians already pay for state buildings, infrastructure, and administrative facilities. Expecting those resources to be used is hardly unreasonable.
Nor is this about punishing workers. Most employees benefit from stronger professional development, clearer communication, and greater opportunities for advancement that come from regular in-person interaction. The office is not merely a location where work happens; it is where institutional knowledge is transferred, workplace culture is built, and public service missions are carried out more effectively.
If returning to the office improves productivity, strengthens collaboration, and enhances service delivery, taxpayers have every reason to support it.
A Privilege Most Californians Never Had
Lost in this debate is an obvious reality.
Most Californians never had the option of working permanently from home.
Construction workers showed up. Nurses showed up. Police officers showed up. Firefighters showed up. Retail workers showed up. Restaurant workers showed up. Truck drivers showed up. Millions of private-sector employees returned to offices long ago.
Many of these workers spent years paying taxes to support the state government while being told that government employees should continue to enjoy a workplace arrangement unavailable to much of the population, with their salaries funded by those taxes.
That disconnect helps explain why public sympathy for these fights is limited.
Most Californians understand flexibility. Most understand occasional telework. What they do not understand is why five years after the pandemic, state government unions still act as though coming to work is an extraordinary burden.
The CEQA Irony
The greatest irony is the tool the unions have chosen.
For years, Californians have watched CEQA weaponized against housing projects, transportation improvements, energy infrastructure, and economic development. Reformers across the political spectrum have argued that the law is too often abused as a litigation weapon rather than an environmental safeguard.
Now the same dynamic is being used again.
A law designed to evaluate major projects is being invoked to prevent state employees from reporting to the offices that taxpayers already pay for.
If successful, the precedent would be astonishing. Government agencies could face environmental review not because they are building something new, but because they expect employees to physically appear at work.
That is not environmental protection. It is a bureaucratic absurdity.
So, Does It Matter?
What this fight ultimately reveals is not a dispute over carbon emissions. It is a dispute over accountability.
Five years after COVID, California’s state government unions are still trying to convert a temporary pandemic accommodation into a permanent taxpayer-funded entitlement. Every attempt to restore ordinary workplace expectations is met with another lawsuit, another bill, another procedural maneuver, or now, another CEQA claim.
At some point, the question is no longer whether remote work can function in certain circumstances. Of course it can.
The question is why California’s state government workers should be able to demand to work from home, when we know that, for most, working in the office is much more productive.
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