Non-mandatory state employees in NC told to telework, but that won’t work for everyone
It has been almost a month since thousands of North Carolina’s state employees were told they could start working from home, soon after the state’s first confirmed cases of the coronavirus.
While some state government facilities are closed, the state government remains open and operational, lawmakers were told on Tuesday.
But not everyone’s jobs can be done at home with a laptop and a desk or kitchen table.
Starting this week, the Office of State Human Resources told all non-mandatory employees not to come in to state facilities. About 70,000 employees work in North Carolina’s state agencies, and tens of thousands more are in the state’s public colleges and universities.
“As before, agencies have been advised to have all employees telework to the greatest extent possible to minimize the risk of COVID-19 infection, to blunt spread, and to support Governor Cooper’s stay-at-home order,” said Jill Lucas, Office of State Human Resources spokesperson, in an email to The News & Observer.
There are more than 3,500 cases of COVID-19 in North Carolina, and more than 50 people have died.
State employees were told to telework as much as possible starting March 13. Lucas did not provide a number of employees who are teleworking.
“Only those employees who are mandatory, in full or in part, should be reporting to their usual workplace, whether that’s in Wake County, where state administrative offices are located, or the other 99 counties where most state employees work,” Lucas said.
Jobs at hospitals and in public health, law enforcement, prisons and emergency management are among those jobs that can’t be done via teleworking and are essential to the COVID-19 State of Emergency, she said.
“Because the majority of state positions are in these essential roles, it is impossible to allow many employees a telework option,” Lucas said.
Those who have to go to work
Charlie Wilkins is a clinical pharmacist at Cherry Hospital in Goldsboro, and a state employee through the Department of Health and Human Services. He can’t work from home.
Wilkins said he’s concerned about employees having “a significantly greater risk of being infected with COVID-19, not only by other employees, but also by the people here at Cherry Hospital who receive psychiatric and medical care.”
He said he’s also concerned about his greater risk of becoming a carrier of the virus and transmitting it to others. Plus he’s worried about becoming sick himself. But that’s not all.
“I am concerned about morale in the workplace, recognizing that we employees are under more stress, causing more tension between one another,” Wilkins said. “Those who are not sick are likely to work more and become more fatigued, placing them at even greater risk of becoming infected and sick.”
For those who are teleworking, Wilkins said he’s concerned about fragmented work flow that could come from working at home, and as a result decrease quality of care.
State employees are allowed to use emergency leave if they met certain criteria, including being sick, caring for a dependent who has COVID-19 symptoms, cannot work because they are caring for children and elders because of facility closures, or are not able to telework due to the nature of their job.
Employees are also granted community service leave if they are volunteering in support of the COVID-19 response.
Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler told Cooper during a Council of State meeting on Tuesday that “we are spread out working from home as much as we possibly can.”
Troxler said the bigger task is keeping people socially distant at the state farmers market.
State Treasurer Dale Folwell spent five days in the hospital with COVID-19, and is recovering at home. A few people who work in his office have since been confirmed with COVID-19.
SEANC wants hazard pay for workers
The State Employees Association of North Carolina wants the governor to provide hazard pay — time-and-a half — to state employees in essential jobs who can’t use social distancing.
“In North Carolina, hazard pay for our state employees should cover, at a minimum, workers within the walls of our state prisons, workers at state mental health and drug treatment facilities, parole and probation officers, the State Highway Patrol and workers in the unemployment section of the Employment Security Commission,” wrote SEANC Executive Director Ardis Watkins in a letter to the governor and General Assembly leaders.
Lucas, with the state’s human resources office, said the state government is looking at options to provide additional benefits or compensation to front-line essential employees.
“All of this takes place within the context of a steep increase in the state’s unemployment rate and a decline in state revenues,” she said.
State lawmakers have been advised recently that a recession is on its way, if not already here. House members on the COVID-19 committee were told to expect a substantial loss in tax revenue due to the coronavirus pandemic. The state is under a stay-at-home order until at least the end of April.
SEANC is also calling for special sick leave time if an employee is infected with COVID-19 while on the job, separate from the usual sick leave time.
In the SEANC letter, Watkins asked Senate leader Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore to send Cooper a bill that covers the cost of doing so. The legislature is scheduled to return for its short session on April 28, which falls under the stay-at-home order.
SEANC also wants the governor and legislature to “work together to allow all non-essential state government workers to work from home for the duration of the emergency, to limit the risk of public contagion and to ensure non-essential government functions are maintained. We continue to hear reports from our members that departments and supervisors are prohibiting state workers from working from home, continuing to require non-essential state workers who could work from home to come into workplaces where social distancing is impossible.
“This creates an unacceptable risk of COVID-19 transmission within the state government workforce,” the letter said.
This story was originally published April 9, 2020 at 5:45 AM.
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