City of Salinas workers told to come back to work
SALINAS, Calif. (KION) About 120 City of Salinas workers are being asked to come back to work as the coronavirus pandemic and shelter in place continue.
This applies to 120 regular, full-time employees, like public works engineers, code enforcement workers, librarians as well as financial and administrative staff, to name a few.
The city says they’re considered essential workers and need to provide critical services during this time of emergency.
“They will be doing mostly their regular jobs which are important critical core services or they will be assigned to some disaster service assistance that we will need to provide.” Salinas City Manager Ray Corpuz said.
The city announced the news at a press conference Wednesday, but city employees first found out through an email last Friday and feel it’s too soon to come back given the severity of the pandemic.
“We don’t feel that the city is prepared yet to provide all the personal protective equipment or can accommodate the social distancing requirements as well,” Daniela DeBaca, Co-President of the Salinas Municipal Employees Association, which represents city workers along with the union, SEIU Local 521.
City Manager Corpuz says the city ordered personal protective equipment, like masks and sanitizer, plans to put social distancing procedures in effect and says some workers will be allowed to work from home.
But the union representing city workers tells me most employees are not equipped to work from home and they wonder what they’ll be doing or who they’ll come in contact with when they return.
“We’re scared also for our families and for the public because we don’t know how much of the public we will be in contact with at this point,” DeBaca said. “We don’t want to be contributing to the spread of the virus.”
They will have to report for work on Monday, April 13th after being on paid administrative leave since March 18th.
But part time and temporary workers aren’t coming back and won’t be paid.
250 workers were previously sent home, this number includes both part-time, temporary, and full-time employees, but only full-time employees were on paid leave.
The union wants the city to push back this call to service and extend the leave for another two weeks, but as of now, the city’s plan is still for workers to report back this Monday.
City employees can use paid sick leave or emergency leave if needed for coronavirus-related reasons. The city manager said accommodations will be made on a case by case basis.
