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Date: Sept. 2, 2022
From: Deputy state treasurer Michael Kaplan, on behalf of Oregon State Treasurer Tobias Read
To: SEIU union steward Scott Robertson
Re: Response to labor grievance filed Aug. 18, 2022
Context: Read, the state treasurer, is locked in a battle with Service Employees International Union 503 Local 170, which represents 105 Oregon State Treasury employees. Two of those employees live in other states. One of those, an analyst with an annual salary of $111,516, filed a grievance last month over Read requiring him to return to Salem once a quarter—and pay his own airfare.
Under a new state telework policy, roughly 500 employees designated “remote” by the state “must be reimbursed” for travel back to Oregon. SEIU says Read violated a collective bargaining agreement by moving the analyst to a different classification that calls him back to Salem.
“The impact of this decision on him would constitute thousands of dollars per year in airfare and hotels, not to mention the time burden and COVID risk of so much air travel,” SEIU wrote on behalf of the analyst, whose name the treasury has withheld pending resolution.
Key argument: Kaplan, Read’s deputy, contends in his response to the union that the treasury maintains a different telework policy than other state agencies. That’s something of a technicality, even if it may prove decisive in this dispute.
What’s more interesting to the public is that Kaplan contends the larger state policy—which, remember, applies to some 500 employees—is absurd.
“Even as lenient and supportive as Treasury’s Working Remotely policy is, it appears the ultimate goal is for employees to never return to the office at all, or for those with the smallest in-office work requirements to receive additional compensation for traveling to and from the workplace,” Kaplan writes. “We find this deeply inequitable and do not understand why the [collective bargaining agreement] would allow for special compensation for a portion of the represented workforce that already avoids commuting costs or that lives out of state and avoids paying Oregon taxes.”
Why it matters: The union filed a nearly identical grievance on behalf of the class of workers it represents. That means more is at stake than the airfare costs of one Texan. It sets up a battle over whether state agencies are required to reimburse the commutes of employees working from other states.
The treasury declined to comment beyond its written response. SEIU representatives did not respond to WW’s requests for comment.