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Mayor Bill de Blasio: It's another important step on the way to the full recovery of New York City. I can feel that coming. You see more and more evidence every day.

Brian Lehrer: Evidence of recovery, but also evidence of the New York City variant spreading and evidence of public health experts questioning whether New York is now opening too quickly. That's the important step. What's the important step that the mayor has announced? Well, it's calling city workers with office jobs back to their desks. That's about 80,000 people in what the New York Times calls a signal to the rest of New York City.

Now, we know that the commercial real estate industry, we've been covering this on the show for months has been pressuring him for months to do exactly this as they lose rent money on their private office buildings and want as little working from home as possible in the new normal. They wanted the mayor to set this example with city workers. Now he is. There are also implications for stores and other companies that the in-person business district used to support to be fair, not just the commercial real estate moguls.

We'll begin today by getting a response to the mayor's decree by talking about "if" and talking about "how." Our guest is Henry Garrido, president of the Union DC 37, the largest union representing municipal employees. Henry, thanks for coming on. Welcome to WNYC today.

Henry Barrido: Thank you for having me.

Brian: Do you support this May 3rd order to start returning to work in person or do you object?

Henry: Well, I think it's a bit of both. Obviously, we understand that the city offices are going to start to reopen and at sometime we have to begin to return to some sense of normalcy. I think that the move to return to the office is premature. I say that because of various factors. Number one, we have not ensured that the facilities are clean, that the air quality is okay to return to work. Secondly, the rate of vaccination is still very low amongst city workers.

Even though we have made an effort as a union to try to increase the number of people who get vaccinated. It was only until about a week and a half ago, that the governor determined that the rest of the city workforce was deemed essential and therefore could be vaccinated. As a result of it we have seen a spike on people getting vaccination but only 20% out of the 150,000 members that I represent have been vaccinated and a percentage even less than that of the 50,000 out of the 80,000 the mayor is calling back.

I think that we need to concentrate on making people safe. That means increasing the size of the vaccination, ensuring that the proper PPEs are provided in the workplace, and also that the facilities are clean and sanitized. Until we see the city's plan or process which we began to hear from them yesterday, I believe that this move was premature.

Brian: Now, it won't be everyone all at once. That's part of the planning process. There will be COVID safety protocols they say. Here's nine more seconds of the mayor.

Mayor de Blasio: The basic rule is clear. Folks coming back, city workers coming back to serve the city, we want to keep them safe, we want to keep each other safe. Of course, they have to wear masks.

Brian: He said they have to wear masks, but I read that mask-wearing will be voluntary. What's your understanding for your members?

Henry: My understanding is that my members will be required to wear masks unless they have a medical condition that prevents them from doing so and they would have to apply for a waiver. The issue is not on members wearing masks. The issue is the public being required to wear masks. When you open city agencies, if the public is not required to wear masks, is only a recommendation, then you're exposing both the city workers from the public coming in, as a result, will not require them to wear masks. That is a function not of the city but a function of the state, who has been very recalcitrant in proposing a mandate that anybody using city agency offices and city services must wear a mask as a mandate.

Brian: That's not required? That's voluntary according to state guidelines, I don't know what offices you're talking about, somebody could walk into the marriage license bureau without a mask and the city clerk will have to give them their marriage license and talk to them, and interview them?

Henry: That's correct. The state recommendation and the state guidelines specifically says when not observing social distance, they recommend that an individual wears a mask. There is no mandate on such a mask on city agencies. There is, however, a mandate that private businesses can mandate an individual who's using their services to wear masks. There's an inconsistency there, in the way we treat private businesses vis-a-vis how we treat the city agencies.

This is one of the problems that I have highlighted to the administration that we want consistent policy across the board. Let's be honest, Brian, look, more than 200 of my members passed away from COVID-19 related disease while performing essential work. That is two out of every three city workers who have passed away is represented by DC 37. A large number of them are not in the healthcare industry, as you would imagine.

They're in the social services industry because we fail to close a lot of those centers where people are coming in as unemployment was rising. We failed to provide the necessary equipment and PPE for those members. Our concern is for the safety of the workers. While we support the mayor and support the effort to try to reopen the city, we think it has to be sensibly done and now we need to protect the workers first.

Brian: Now, listeners, we're having a little problem with the phones. Right at this minute, we're trying to get it fixed. When we do, we'll give out the phone number and if we get it fixed in the next few minutes, we'll invite city workers to call in and maybe talk about your particular office because this, of course, is for the city workers who work in offices, the police officers, the firefighters, the sanitation workers, so many others are already back on their worksites. They have to be. This is the city office workers who are now being called back and the implications here go way beyond the city.

Again, when we get the phones cranked up, we will invite people from other private sectors office environments to call in on how your company is getting ready to deal with coming back or has already come back or what the controversies are over this. Because now my guest is Henry Garrido president in DC 37 the municipal workers union on the immediate news of the mayor saying city office workers will start having to come back on May 3rd.

This obviously has implications for so many other New Yorkers who work in the private sector, and what's going to be required of them and what's going to be promised to them in terms of safety, and in terms of access. Henry, do you think that this has implications for the rest of the city, not just for your municipal employee members? I'm curious along the lines of what I was saying in the introduction, to what degree if any, you think the mayor is doing this because of pressure from the commercial real estate industry to start getting their monthly rental payments back?

Henry: Well, no doubt that this has major implications. Let's be clear, city workers represent about 10% of the total city's workforce. Just to be clear, I represent 150,000 members. 100,000 of those were deemed essential from the beginning, they have been working every day. Even when schools were closed I had nearly 15,000 school employees working every single day feeding the public, not just feeding the children, but continuing to work while many of the teachers are working remotely. Our members have already been subjected to the pressures of having to work in an office environment.

Having said that, I think the problem here is commercial real estate cannot drive policies when it comes to pandemic and safety. A lot of the city leased properties are required to pay that. There's no provision for a company to continue to pay on those leases. Now, if we're talking about vacancies, that's a whole new story. The reality is if you look at the tax role which my numbers represent the people in finance, there hasn't been a major decline in commercial real estate office occupation.

What there has been is in decline in property values which are two different things. I think there is pressure going on, but there's also at the same time that industry is being hypocritical because it's asking for a major decline in the taxes because people are not coming in. There's a little bit of inconsistency there by the industry.

Brian: That's interesting. I'm glad you pointed out the property value, the underlying property value motivation by them, not just to get the immediate monthly rent checks. We had a guest yesterday, business and economics reporter, who said, "You can't just look at this in terms of the special interest that we might deem the commercial real estate industry to be." There are also so many stores and other businesses that are losing their livelihoods, the people there are losing their livelihoods because hardly anybody's in the traditional business districts in Manhattan and so we have to think about them too.

It's really for the good of the whole city and the good of the city's future economy and the good of many regular workers who can't go to their old jobs right now to bring as many people back into New York City offices as possible. How much do you agree or disagree with that?

Henry: Well, I agree. I think that there's a whole ecosystem that we understand in New York's economy that is tied to mobility. We're talking about the public transit system also being heavily affected by low ridership and the businesses that are providing services around a lot of city agency. We understand that, but I also think that I would urge the public before jumping to conclusion to say that many of our members are scared.

Just as you are scared, they're scared to come back to work without any assurances that those offices will be clean. That the policies are not going to be the policies that we had before that exposed a lot of them and many of them have died or gotten sick and having to retire because of permanent disability as a result of COVID-19. That's what we're looking for. Right now most city agencies are not designed to observe social distance.

That's just the fact. Cubicles are within two feet of each other, call centers are even less than that. We're forcing people to come back to the situation that we're telling the public not to do. What we asked the city to do is to redesign the way the city works by creating staggered shifts and by having different people come at different days so you could still spark the economic activity and still begin to realize the people coming back, but not do it all at once. I know the mayor has said that, but until I see a plan I'm telling you, Brian, there's a little bit of skepticism on my part because I haven't seen what those agencies plans have been. That's my concern on behalf of my members.

Brian: Henry, Garrido the president of the big municipal workers union, DC, 37 with us as we talk about the mayor's announcement this week, that city office workers will be required to go back to their desks and stop working remotely in phases but beginning on May 3rd. You were describing how it's hard to socially distance in many of these offices and even more so in some of the cost centers, has the administration described in any detail how they will reconfigure the physical space?

My radio station used to be located in the main Manhattan municipal building at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge. I know how old and structurally inflexible a lot of that infrastructure can be never mind the grimy bathrooms, but that's another show. What kinds of office redesigns do you advocate or think are even feasible?

Henry: Well, we're looking for-- We understand that the age of the building is something that we're not going to be able to address, but we're looking for things that are in our opinion, things that could be implemented pretty straightforward. Like installing partitions, plexiglass partitions between unit. Alternated units, so that you don't have a worker working right next to each other, the way you go and when you take a plane nowadays, or you go into an office building and you have one seat and the next two seats are open and then another seat occupied.

In order to do that, to fulfill those stations, you would need to have alternative work schedules or flex time or some work shifts so that people can come in a staggered basis. We're not asking massive infrastructure. Obviously, we want air filters to be checked and make sure that the air quality is there, so you don't have the same circulated air or many offices will have staff empty for the most part.

We want practices to make sure that the people get the proper protection equipment, and that's not just masks. There was a whole debate about the type of masks the city workers were asking, but it means gloves. In many instances, I remember dealing with people who have fluid transfer, so respirators and masks and things that protect them and gowns that protect them. It's imperative that we make sure that that's provided as the people come back to work

Brian: Listeners, I mentioned that our phones are down for the moment. We're working to get them back up as quick as we can, but you can tweet a question for Henry Garrido or a comment. City workers, you're invited, tweet @BrianLehrer or anybody else in the private sector. If we get the phones up quick enough, we'll do this on the phones, but in the meantime, if you are a private-sector office worker or manager, has your company brought people back to the office to any degree yet, tell us in 280 characters or less, how that's going? Tweet @BrianLehrer or maybe the company you own or work for is starting to make its plans, help us report this story via Twitter.

You know you don't have to keep it to 280 characters. You can always tweet a tweet thread. What are you seeing as best practices? What controversies are breaking out? What do you see as the hardest parts? For the moment tweet @BrianLehrer, if you're in the private sector office economy, how much has Henry Garrido's set of concerns ringing true with you like your company is going through the same process now, or city workers yourselves? You can tweet your office conditions and if and how you think this can work.

You are quoted estimating that at least 20% of your members have been vaccinated so far, but that's really low. You mentioned that here a minute ago, too, that there are many members who haven't been vaccinated yet. If that 20% figure is right, then there will probably still be half the workforce or a majority of the workforce in the population that we're talking about unvaccinated when this begins. Are you as a union leader urging your members to get vaccinated? If so, how?

Henry: Well, absolutely. In fact, I myself got vaccinated publicly. I live showed to all our members to show that I not only were encouraging them to vaccinate, but also I was doing it as a way of leaving an example. We are making an effort here in the union. In fact, we have an event at Citi Field this coming Saturday, where we're going to vaccinate as many DC 37 members as we can. We have a DC 37 vaccination day at Citi Field.

We are now aiding our members who would like to schedule an appointment because that was a big problem where people wanted to get vaccinated, but they couldn't get an appointment, especially in the neighborhoods that they're in. We've taken a part of that and was a partner with the city in scheduling the appointments once an individual meets that requirement.

We're doing that in the union, and that has been highly successful. We have a lot of requests, more requests than we can accommodate to be quite honest. In our conversations with the city yesterday they proposed that we would increase that number. I want to say this that part of the problem we have, Brian, as you probably mentioned a couple of times in your shows before is that this pandemic no doubt has disproportionately hurt minorities African-Americans, and people of color.

In many instances, people are saying, "Well, there's a distrust of the vaccine with Munda population. The city's workforce is not different than that of what you see in the rest of the population. What I'm seeing, however, of all the city workers is just the opposite. There is some skepticism among some, but the vast majority of them want to be vaccinated. That's one of the reasons why I questioned the May 3rd day as a return date because I would like to have seen that as in other states, the numbers to be above 60% or around 60%, by the time the workers begin to come back.

20% is not enough. As of yesterday, maybe 22% of them yesterday, were making progress but that progress doesn't reflect that we will get there, the 60% by the May 3rd date. That's one of the questions that I'm raising to the city to see whether we could begin to speed up that process before we begin to bring the workforce back.

Brian: I know you got to go in in a minute or so. Here's a question for you via Twitter, "What will happen once workers return and an outbreak occurs?" Now, that is not in my opinion just a pessimistic prediction. I think we've seen it in schools, we've seen it elsewhere. Outbreaks do occur. If you have 80,000 people in this job category, some outbreaks are going to occur. Has the mayor communicated to you what the policy would be for reclosing partially, fully? How are they going to handle that is going to be a two case role, like in the public schools? Do you know?

Henry: Well, I know about some areas. I know certainly that for the 30,000 members who work on the school that those rules apply. For the other agencies, I have not heard what the policy is going to be. We had seen pockets spread, where there's just a number of cases springing very quickly. We had a case in Staten Island where we had 12 cases before the city decided to close the office in a DEP situation. That's what our concern would be.

From my perspective, if there is an outbreak in any agency, there's enough cases, we would immediately ask the city, if not the state to close that agency immediately to protect the workers. If they need to be redeployed elsewhere, that's fine. If they need to find another location that's fine. We're not simply advocating people be sent home. We're advocating that people be kept safe and that's our primary objective here.

Brian: Stunk Donkey tweets. Of course, you can take any name on Twitter. Somebody took Stunk Donkey. I'm a mayoral agency employee human resources has refused to communicate any specifics about this process internally, just continued to reference a vague plan. That's another tweet that we've got. Christopher tweets I'm a psychotherapist. No one wants to come back yet. Major issues. Our air circulation, many offices, no windows or small windows and small space. Also, what about bathrooms? Many have multiple stalls and those air blowers.

Henry, I know you got to go, give me one last thought on what you think your members want and what you want for them as a permanent new normal. Have you found that a lot of people really prefer working from home? I'm sure a lot of people don't prefer working from home, but also that a lot of people prefer working from home and would like to make the case that they should be allowed to do it permanently if they've been a 100% productive.

Henry: Yes, I think an answer to the first tweet, I think people need to know the city agencies are required to submit a plan to the mayor's office by April 5th. That has yet occurred and that plan will detail how the workers begin to come back on May 3rd. I think for the overall case, there is a case to be made right now, we're insisting on it. This is an opportunity to reimagine government. The city could look at telecommuting as an option for those workers who could work from home since productivity is actually higher now than it's ever been in terms of case management and handling. If people could do that from home, I'm looking forward to contract negotiations that begin to look into that.

There are a couple of bills in Albany that require or are asking for the establishment of a telecommuting policy. The reality is you cannot legislate this. You actually have to bargain this at the local level and I look forward to doing that with the city of New York. Also, for the sake of the protection of the people. What can be done and can be done responsibly and people can be accounted for.

In fact, what we're seeing is people are taking less breaks because they're constantly on the systems and the systems are being monitored and that people are working way beyond the beginning or start date.

They're starting earlier or ending much later than the schedule because they're constantly on trying to get to a target. Productivity is going up significantly. If there's an opportunity for us to rethink governance and allow the portion of those workers who not only want to back an option, even if it's not a permanent option that they don't work five days from home, but that they could work a portion of those days from home and still be productive then we should look at that.

I think I'm advocating for the city to have an open mind on this and advocating that the people be protected until we get out of this whole thing. This pandemic has changed our lives. I think we need to start thinking differently in the way we address services in the city of New York.

Brian: Henry Garrido, president of DC 37. Thanks so much for coming on with us today. Good luck to you and all your members.

Henry: Thank you for having me, Brian.

Brian: A couple of more tweaks along these lines. "My private-sector office came back in June teams A and B bi-weekly--" Guess they're rotating teams, A and B, that means. "By September full time we are on two floors. The third floor is not a 100% masking, many got COVID. Second floor, very compliant, no COVID cases. Mask up." Someone else writes, "My city office has unventilated windowless bathrooms, no one-way entrance or exit, no HVAC and windows that only open two inches, but I'm able to work a 100% capacity remotely. How does it make sense to return to these conditions only to participate in web meetings?"

There is the sense on Twitter of some of the conversations taking place among city workers and private-sector workers. Again, we thank Henry Garrido. Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Much more to come as we turn the page and preview President Biden's first news conference as president this afternoon and a lot of other things going on in Washington. Stay with us.

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