OCEA Stewards meet with DA Todd Spitzer to discuss telecommuting

OCEA member,

On June 29, 2022, OCEA labor representatives and your District Attorney Stewards (Mary Hunter, Joanna Burchell, Alicia Lopez, and Luis Arevalo) met with District Attorney Todd Spitzer, Chief Assistant District Attorney Shawn Nelson, Executive Director of Administration Glenn Robinson, and Director of Operations Matt Pettit to discuss the future of telework in the DA’s office. The meeting provided an opportunity to express District Attorney worker concerns directly to decision makers and provided the foundation for what we are hopeful will be implementation of a more worker-friendly permanent telecommuting policy for staff.

The District Attorney clarified that he will not arbitrarily bring all employees back to the office full-time in light of the current wave of COVID cases. At the same time, he expressed concern with the current telecommuting arrangement now that the Courts are open to the public and demanding more pre-pandemic operations. He also spoke to his desire for workplace collaboration and his view that it suffers if interactions are virtual.

Your OCEA team informed the District Attorney that many OCEA members have expressed a strong preference to work a hybrid schedule. We emphasized that we have collectively done a great job of getting work done timely and professionally during the pandemic and want to keep doing so with the flexibly that a hybrid telework schedule provides. We were able to have a robust discussion and come out with action items to meet with at the next meeting later this month.

In the next meeting later this month, your team will discuss with the District Attorney some possible specific parameters of a hybrid schedule for DA employees. To help us convey the specific schedule elements important to you, please complete THIS BRIEF SURVEY. If you have any questions, please reach out to one of your stewards, Alisha at AGreene@ocea.org or Aaron at APeardon@ocea.org.

Sincerely,

Aaron Peardon
OCEA Senior Labor Relations Representative

Publication Date: July 15, 2022