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The statewide adoption of remote work for government employees was politically advantageous for Gov. Gavin Newsom early in the pandemic.
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His administration set up a public-facing dashboard tracking how much carbon dioxide commuting state workers were not adding to the atmosphere by working from home. The administration attempted to use telework as a way to cut down on costs by reducing lease space and limiting travel spending.
But that’s all changed.
The telework dashboard exists only on an internet archive and, despite a state audit that estimated California could save hundreds of millions of dollars by maintaining its telework policy, the governor has been unmoved in his position that state employees need to be back in offices.
“It’s the mood of the moment, right?” said Democratic strategist Steven Maviglio. “Everybody in politics, you put your finger in the air and see which way the winds are blowing. They were blowing differently then.”
The sentiment among many state workers, expressed online and at rallies opposing the return-to-office order, is that Newsom’s telework shift can be explained by the governor’s all-but-inevitable presidential run. The political reality, however, may be more complicated.
When asked what role politics had played in Newsom’s changing attitude toward telework, Tara Gallegos, a spokesperson for the Governor’s Office, reaffirmed his reasoning for the return-to-office order outlined in .
“To be clear: telework still exists within state government. The Governor is bringing employees back four days per week, with employees having the option to work from home on the remaining day,” Gallegos said in a statement.
Newsom has taken the approach that in-person collaboration and mentorship are necessary to provide good public services. In the process, he has bucked some of the powerful state worker unions that have forcefully advocated to preserve telework.
“Governor Newsom cannot claim to be a national leader on workers’ rights and innovation while his administration moves state workers backward,” Anica Walls, president of SEIU Local 1000, said in a statement.
Instead of forcing a one-size-fits-all mandate on the state’s workforce, the Newsom administration should be using telework as an opportunity to save money on office space, Walls said, adding that California should use that money to fund pay raises for SEIU Local 1000 members. The union, which represents nearly 100,000 state employees, is negotiating a new contract with the state and is demanding a 20% general salary increase over three years.
Walls advocated for a union-sponsored bill, which has gained traction in the Legislature, that would allow leaders of individual state agencies to establish their own telework policies, and would also revive the now-defunct remote work dashboard.
But in order for that piece of legislation intended to protect state workers’ telework abilities, it needs to make it past the governor’s desk — which appears unlikely given Newsom’s recent statement about the return-to-office order: “We want to get it done.”
California’s telework history
Before the COVID-19 pandemic sent office workers home, California had tried — largely unsuccessfully — to promote telework.
In 2010, the Department of General Services issued guidance that said telework could improve morale, performance and “effective continuation of business” during an emergency. But remote work didn’t really catch on because of a longstanding butts-in-chair culture.
The pandemic sent departments scrambling to adapt to remote work and, eventually, the telework policies became popular with state workers.
To convince the public, the Newsom administration established a dashboard that highlighted the benefits of telework. By allowing employees to work remotely, the state estimated commuters avoided adding over 18,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere in December 2023.
In 2024, the Newsom administration stopped funding DGS’ Telework Compliance Office, which published state telework data that populated the dashboard. Since that website went dark, some have recreated the dashboard using data from the original website published by the state.
The change came as some private companies, like Amazon and AT&T, began calling workers back to offices and the chorus of telework critics grew louder.
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Newsom called employees back to offices four days a week in 2025, setting off a fierce opposition campaign led by state workers and their unions. Since then, government employees have regularly held rallies in the streets of Sacramento voicing their opposition and their labor groups have tried to push back in the courts.
Political lens
Newsom’s insistence that workers return to office has coincided with the ascent of his political ambition — though he has not officially announced his candidacy, he has said he is considering a presidential run. As governor of California, he is frequently villainized by President Donald Trump and other GOP leaders for his liberal policies, though he has recently moderated some of his more left-leaning positions.
While the issue of where California state employees work will likely not be the most important topic to emerge from the 2028 presidential race, given that less than 100,000 workers are expected to be impacted by the return-to-office order, that doesn’t mean Newsom hasn’t been approaching this decision through a political perspective.
Allowing state workers to continue teleworking could become a political liability for the governor when attempting to court voters outside of California.
“It’s been X number of years since the pandemic and you’re still letting workers telework? You wouldn’t think that will sell well in certain states,” said David Crane, a public policy lecturer at Stanford University and the president of the center-right political nonprofit Govern For California.
“Newsom is very ambitious,” Crane said. “He’s going to be viewing everything through the lens of the next election he’s in.”
However, one of those considerations is the blowback he could receive from unions if he moves forward with his July 1 deadline requiring state workers to return to offices four days a week.
“I think the last thing Gavin Newsom wants is a bunch of people in purple shades following him around in New Hampshire and Iowa,” Maviglio said, referring to the color of SEIU, which represents 2 million workers across the country. Maviglio has previously worked with SEIU’s pension coalition on issues related to retirement benefits.
Labor unions are the “backbone of the Democratic Party, so you don’t want to mess with that too much,” he said.
Unions attempt to force Newsom’s hand
Unions have not been pleased with Newsom over his insistence that state employees need to collaborate more by working in person.
Last year, several unions sued the state over Newsom’s return-to-office policy, arguing the policy change violated state labor law. State workers and their labor representatives were able to successfully postpone the directive one year after negotiating with the Newsom administration.
Opponents have pursued similar tactics to resist the return-to-office order this year. The state attorneys union sued state departments earlier this month over the return-to-office directive, arguing that the policy violated California’s signature environmental law.
Unions have taken a new approach as well. Labor groups are backing Assembly Bill 1729, which would allow individual agencies to create department-specific telework policies, instead of following the governor’s four-day requirement that is currently scheduled to go into effect next month.
The bill is an “urgency bill,” which means that it would go into effect immediately after the governor signs it — if Newsom gives the measure his approval.
The measure could potentially pose a problem with collective bargaining because the governor’s administration is ostensibly bargaining on behalf of all agencies, said Tim Yeung, a public sector labor expert. Allowing individual departments to set telework policies could create disparities among workers who are supposed to be covered by the same contract, he said.
In recent years, the governor has vetoed legislation over collective bargaining concerns.
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“I wouldn’t expect the governor to sign a bill like that,” Yeung said.
This story was originally published June 23, 2026 at 5:00 AM.