NYC To Consider Hybrid Work for Municipal Workers

Representatives of NYC’s largest municipal union notified its members this month that the city has changed its negotiating position on hybrid work for non-essential city workers—and now is willing to discuss the union’s demand for hybrid work schedules as part of a new labor contract.

SSEU Local 371, which is part of District Council 37 (DC 37)—the largest union whose contract has expired—told its members in a letter entitled “Bargaining Session Update” that, during a negotiating session on Jan. 24 between DC 37 and the city’s bargaining committee, the city agreed to put the issue of hybrid work on the bargaining table.

“Previously, the city had made it clear that they were not interested in negotiations regarding telework/hybrid schedules for the union’s members,” said Carl Cook, an SSEU VP, in the letter, according to a report in Gothamist.

“However, after the persistence of the union and its representatives, the city has changed its position and will now review the demand,” Cook said.

Prior to the latest negotiating session, Mayor Eric Adams publicly argued against allowing city workers the option of hybrid work schedules letting them work from home for part of the week.

Adams has argued that the city needs to set a return-to-office example for the private sector. The mayor also has noted that any hybrid work policy would be unfair to the city’s thousands of essential workers.

Regarding setting an example for the private sector, recent polls indicate that horse may have left the barn: Partnership for New York City, a business advocacy group, released a survey earlier this month indicating that 82% of employers have accepted that hybrid work patterns will be their “predominant policy” in 2023.

Kastle’s weekly barometer of office occupancy also reflects the new hybrid reality in NYC: office occupancy surges past 60% on Tuesdays, the busiest day of hybrid schedules, and drops down to 25% on Fridays in the weekly survey, based on entry-card swipes.

It also appears that corporate CEOs are in fact leading by example on hybrid work: HQ Corporate Mobility, which books fancy black limos that top Fortune 500 execs like to tool around in says they’ve shifted their schedules in Manhattan to Tuesday through Thursday to correspond with peak demand.

According to a Stanford University analysis released Monday by Bloomberg, the split personality of Manhattan’s office market—bustling on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, emptying out on Friday and Monday—is costing Manhattan businesses that depend on foot traffic from office workers an estimated $12B a year.

Using the US Census Bureau’s 2019 estimate of 2.7M daily commuters in Manhattan as a starting point, Stanford’s economists calculated that the average worker is spending an inflation-adjusted $4,661 less per year on meals, shopping and entertainment near their NYC offices.

The reduction in foot traffic has sent NYC’s subway system into a financial “free-fall,” the report said, with weekly ridership averaging only about 60% of pre-pandemic levels. Researchers have modeled an eventual 40% drop in office market values in Manhattan as towers sit partially empty, which they estimated would cost about $5B annually in tax revenue, about 5% of NYC’s budget.

Bruce Stachenfeld, an NYC real estate attorney, posted an open letter to Mayor Adams on Monday warning that the approval of hybrid work for municipal workers will exacerbate the deterioration of what Stachenfeld called “an ecosystem” of businesses relying on foot traffic from office workers, including retail, restaurants and bars.

Letting non-essential workers go on hybrid schedules will undermine their ability to interact with the public, he said, and it will undercut the recovery of public transit systems. Empty office buildings will create “deserted streets” that are “going to be a witch’s cauldron for increases in crime,” he added.

“You have been seeking to lead by example by exhorting business leaders and employees to come back to the office,” Stachenfeld’s letter to the mayor said. “Allowing governmental employees a different standard undermines your leadership on this critical point.”

Stachenfeld warned Adams that any concession to unions on hybrid work “will be forever,” whereas businesses “will always adjust to market forces.”