State officials filed a notice of appeal with the state Supreme Court Wednesday, as Gov. Phil Scott called the decision “disappointing, but not surprising.”
Updated 5:31 p.m.
The Vermont Labor Relations Board has ordered that Gov. Phil Scott’s administration “rescind” a controversial requirement that state employees return to their physical offices three days per week.
The board, a quasi-judicial body that makes decisions on the labor grievances of state employees, said in its decision Wednesday that the state has “refused to bargain in good faith and interfered with employees’ exercise of rights” in requiring in-person work.
Scott called the decision “disappointing, but not surprising” in his weekly press conference Wednesday, and said the board’s membership is “weighted towards labor.”
While Scott appointed the board’s members himself, he told reporters that “parameters” governing the body’s makeup had limited his choices, appearing to refer to the panel’s statutory guidelines.
Earlier in the day, his office put out a statement lambasting the state labor relations board and its decision, calling the body “broken.”
The state has already filed a notice of appeal with the Vermont Supreme Court, officials said.
The Vermont State Employees’ Association, for its part, called the decision a “stunning victory” in a Wednesday email to members. The order, union leadership said in that email, protects “the rights of our members to have a say in their conditions of employment.”
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