Portland’s mayor-elect got his first taste of pushback this week while announcing plans to bring city workers back to their desks four days a week.
Incoming Mayor Keith Wilson’s “return to the office” proposal landed like a wet pancake Thursday during a speech, given virtually, to 1,400 city employees, according to a public radio report.
Oregon Public Broadcasting said employees slammed the idea in a chatroom attached to the video conferencing application. Mayor Ted Wheeler ordered office dwellers to work in-person 50% of the time in late 2022.
“It is critical that decision makers recognize that remote work opportunities are essential for equity,” one employee wrote, according to the radio station.
Kari Koch, president of the City of Portland Professional Workers Union, told The Oregonian/OregonLive on Friday that Wilson’s speech ignored the positives of the city’s hybrid work schedule, including increased efficiency and flexibility for workers.
“Hybrid work allows us to be creative, collaborative and to meet the needs of the community,” she said. “Culture is built through working together… not by walking by each other in the hallway everyday.”
Koch, who works as a Portland Permitting & Development coordinator, said flexible schedules remain a “top priority” for her union’s 800 members, who range from financial analysts to information technology workers.
Desks sat empty inside the Portland Building in 2023.Zane Sparling/The Oregonian
While battle lines have been drawn, it’s unclear if Wilson will keep up the fight when he takes office next year. The mayor-elect didn’t respond to OPB’s reporting and his incoming chief of staff, Aisling Coghlan, said Friday she was traveling abroad and unable to comment.
Government employees aren’t alone in their preference for seconds-long commutes from bedroom to home office.
More than 360,000 Oregonians worked from home in 2023, at least part of the time, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported recently. That’s about 18% of the state’s workforce — and it makes Oregon the No. 2 state overall for hybrid workers.
But some economists have warned of a so-called “doom loop” if central business districts stay empty, saying forlorn office towers will lead to falling property tax revenue and empty city coffers.
Portland’s newly-elected 12-member City Council already faces a grim budget forecast that may require clipping costs by 5%, the newspaper reported in October.
A trucking CEO, Wilson ran for mayor as an outsider with no prior elected experience, but touted his can-do attitude and plans to tackle the homelessness crisis. He won with a strong mandate from roughly 60% of the voters in the city’s first-ever election using ranked-choice voting.
Koch, the union leader, said Wilson’s speech suggests he still has some adjusting to do from private to public sector life.
“It’s a strange battle for the new mayor to pick,” she said. “I’m hoping that Wilson can recover from this and be a forward-looking, visionary mayor focused on the city’s biggest challenges, not looking backwards with sepia-toned glasses.”
—Zane Sparling covers breaking news and courts for The Oregonian/OregonLive. Reach him at 503-319-7083, [email protected] or @pdxzane.
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