NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — All municipal workers in New York City are set to return to offices on Monday, following a directive from the mayor, but some say they aren't ready to come back.
Mayor Bill de Blasio is insistent — there's work that needs to be done.
"I will have this discussion with anyone, anytime. In-person is more effective, more efficient, there's more collaboration, there's more creativity, as a manager, night and day, when I'm dealing with people in-person than via Zoom," the mayor said on his weekly appearance on WNYC. "People need to come back because we have work to do to bring this city back."
He said the city is ready to welcome municipal workers, approximately 80,000 who have been working remotely since the pandemic started, back to the office starting Monday.
"The guidance has been put out to the agencies, the employees. It's a very meticulous plan," de Blasio said.
That plan involves staggered schedules, masks, social distancing and improved ventilation, but the workers themselves may not be ready.
A group calling itself City Workers for Justice is putting out a list of demands. Among them is pausing the return until September and allowing workers more of a say in developing a return plan.
They have scheduled a rally for Saturday outside City Hall.
Henry Garrido, executive director of DC 37 — the city's largest union for municipal workers, believes his workers are being used and forced back into the office too quickly, just for the sake of getting them beck.
"I'm concerned that we will unprepared beginning on Monday," Garrido said. "We have more than 200 DC37 members die on the job so those coworkers who have worked with them still have that fresh image of people being sick and not coming back."
He maintains productivity is up since remote work began and is concerned his workers are being put at risk unnecessarily by a rushed return.
An adamant de Blasio said experts are on his side.
"I'm sure you're going to have people being either cynical or not having heard all the information that there has been something they don't like, but what we have is a clear track record here of the models that work," de Blasio said.