Remote Working. Privilege or Obligation?
It’s been a minute… but this stirred up some inspiration and fire. LOL
Directors Message dated 6/1/21:
“While Los Angeles County has historically sought ways to reduce the carbon footprints of its more than 30 county departments and 100,000 employees, the pandemic and its corresponding fiscal shortfall have propelled our county government into the era of the remote workforce.
…..Although telework was initially a protective measure….., it is now a privilege for many county employees, including a large percentage of our staff at DCFS.
…. telework has enhanced employee morale and work-life balance over the last year, and both are important factors of retention and workplace stability.
…..While eligibility for telework is discretionary and dependent on the effective continuity of business operations, managerial approval and employee performance.”
-DCFS Director Bobby Cagle
#MOOD
Now, I can’t understand how reducing our carbon footprint is a privilege for county employees. “Telework has enhanced employee morale and work-life balance over the last year, and both are important factors of retention and workplace stability”. Privilege? Really? Seems like it works more for the department then us.
We keep this shit together while these managers sit behind their desks, attend their thousand meetings and tell us, the front line workers, what to do and how to do it. I personally work even harder, teleworking, to prove I’m worthy of this “privilege” and I hear this sentiment from several workers. How is enhanced morale and work-life balance truly a privilege? Wasn’t that how life was supposed to be when our “founding fathers” created this system?
The world we live in is constantly evolving and adjusting to the damage we do to it every day and our actions, including big corporations, public and private departments, are not enough to sustain for the long term. Ice caps melting, longer summers, non-existent winters and so on.
Am I missing something? Seems like we are working for a modern day slave master. I know the union is focusing on Heroes pay for this upcoming contract but once it’s over, I need for SEIU and its members to focus on teleworking being a mandatory way of life moving forward and not placing the approval so heavily on these vindictive, “old way” of thinking managers. These managers have free rein to do as they please and their favorite saying to justify the inequality and unfair treatment, “operational needs”. Hearing that makes me gag.
It is a luxury to have a great worker. It’s a luxury to have a worker willing to put their own life, including their family and children, on the back burner to live and breathe their company’s missions. But it’s a privilege for us to receive accommodations that will not only make our world a better place, literally, but something that would make us a happier more joyful versions of our self.
SMH I’m done!!!!
