California Union Leans on Newsom’s Climate Record to Fight RTO

California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s green-friendly policies inspired a union to wield the state’s flagship environmental protection law to stop a July deadline for roughly 90,000 state workers to expand in-person work requirements.

The lawsuit has raised eyebrows among scholars in the Golden State, particularly its novel legal theory that Newsom’s requirement that state employees begin working in offices four-days-per-week violates the California Environmental Quality Act. The union representing state attorneys and administrative law judges claims the state failed to assess the environmental impact of putting tens of thousands of additional cars on the road during the morning and evening commutes.

“A workplace that requires people to work in person rather than remotely seems incredibly far from” what that law is intended for, said Catherine Fisk, an employment law professor at the University of California, Berkeley. “After the pandemic when lots of workplaces went back to all in person, it never even crossed anyone’s mind that you have to do a CEQA analysis.”

The complaint—filed June 5 by the California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment, also known as CASE—alleges the return-to-office policies violate CEQA because the state failed to analyze environmental impacts from increased commuting by more than 90,000 state workers. The complaint estimates that in one month of remote work, workers saved 1.2 million commute hours and 2 million gallons of fuel, citing a California State Auditor report from 2025.

CASE is seeking an injunction to stop Newsom’s return-to-office executive order and a proper CEQA analysis.

Newsom’s office said it will review CASE’s complaint and respond in court. California’s Department of Human Resources declined to comment on the litigation and said it offers guidance and support to affected state employees through a state online portal.

‘Do Something Different’

The union’s legal strategy, targeting environmental review, came about after concluding the union needed to “do something different” in its fight against return-to-office, said CASE board member Ivan Waggoner, who chaired the union committee formed on telework policies in November. The governor’s own championing of environmental law inspired the committee to go this direction.

“These are policies” Newsom’s constituents “wanted, so it’s not going to be that easy for him to just turn his back on people that elected him,” Waggoner said. “If you look at the law, it was purposely designed to be broad in application to prevent things like putting 90,000 people on the road.”

CASE also opposed the increase from the current two-day requirement to four days weekly in the office that Newsom unveiled in the spring of 2025. At the time, it joined forces with unions representing about 100,000 state workers. CASE and other major state employee unions struck deals with California in the 11th hour ahead of last year’s return-to-office deadline to postpone the in-person requirement until this July.

The state’s largest public-employee union representing about 95,000 state workers, SEIU Local 1000, also opposes the July 1 RTO deadline after reaching a similar deal with the state last June. SEIU filed an unfair labor practice charge with California’s Public Employment Relations Board on May 12 alleging the state has refused to bargain in good faith when it unlawfully imposed a “unilateral change” to the conditions of employment outlined in its memorandum of understanding with the state.

“SEIU Local 1000 is fighting this return-to-office mandate on every front because telework decisions should be based on operational need, taxpayer value and effective public service, not politics,” said Anica Walls, president of the SEIU chapter, in a statement.

‘Sounds Like a Stretch’

Fisk said that while CEQA has been successfully used as an effective strategy for people who lack political power to block proposed actions, CASE’s argument “sounds like a stretch.” The issue strikes her as something that should be bargained over rather than treating it as an environmental issue.

“I’ve never seen the argument that requiring employees to work in person rather than remotely would be a CEQA violation,” Fisk said.

Nicholas A. Bloom, a professor of economics at Stanford University, said that while there’s evidence that telework reduces pollution and is likely environmentally positive, he’s skeptical about building a case around it. Bloom has co-authored papers on the economic, environmental, and productivity impacts of remote and hybrid work.

CASE is in the midst of bargaining with state agencies on a potential resolution over the RTO dispute and would welcome a resolution ahead of the July 1 deadline, Waggoner said. CASE filed its own unfair labor practice charge on May 22.

“We’re not the largest union out there,” Waggoner said. “We do have a good asset that our members are highly educated, highly intelligent, highly motivated people and the work that they contribute to the state is just crucial.”

The case is Cal. Attorneys, Admin. Law Judges & Hearing Officers in State Emp. v. Cal. Envtl. Prot. Agency,, Cal. Super. Ct., No. 26CV192463.