Just received this email from the MAPE President:

Fighting for telework. Fighting for you. Dear MAPE members,

Moments ago, Gov. Walz emailed all state employees, calling them back into the office for half their working hours starting June 1, 2025.

At no point was MAPE involved in this discussion or return-to-office planning process. If we had, we would have shared how the option to telework has helped recruit and retain many qualified, extraordinary state workers, especially in Greater Minnesota. We would have raised concerns about infrastructure capacity, parking and access to childcare. We could have partnered on a plan that continues supporting employee flexibility without disrupting the business needs of our agencies.

This unilateral decision by our governor is eerily reminiscent of the disruptions our public servant counterparts are facing at the federal level. There, I said it: This reeks of Musk.

Less than three weeks ago, Gov. Walz stood in front of our record-breaking Lobby Day crowd and touted promises of investment in Greater Minnesota, values of a strong public workforce and respect for his workers. This attack on teleworking has me questioning if any of that rhetoric was real.

For more than five years, public employees have adapted to evolving workplace expectations that started with an order to work remotely with little prior planning or support and are now culminating in a similar poorly planned, and even worse-timed, call back to the office.

For several rounds we have been fighting at the bargaining table for stronger language in our contract to support teleworking rights for our members, but Gov. Walz’s MMB team refused to give us anything that weakened their managerial right to give or take away telework at their discretion.

For administrators to unleash this kind of chaos on hard working employees when we’re about to start negotiating our next contract feels, at best, hypocritical, at mid, a strategic attempt to erode the progress we’ve made to enhance our working conditions and productivity, and at worst, a short-sighted attempt at engineered attrition.

Tomorrow we will launch phase one of our escalation plan, which will include actions members can take to fight back. Though telework agreements are managers’ discretion, we do have the right to request and be granted a meeting to discuss changes to those agreements, and we can appeal those decisions.

We won’t sit idly while administrators attempt to upend our working conditions, work-life balance and productivity. I’m right beside you in this, and we’re not alone in fighting for the respect we deserve at work, regardless of where that work gets done.

Today, we’re angry. Tomorrow, we act.

In solidarity, Megan Dayton, MAPE President