Other Northeast U.S. cities have brought municipal workers back to the office. Just not every day like Philly.

Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle L. Parker wants the city’s municipal workforce back in the office five days a week beginning July 15.

The mandate is one of Parker’s signature policies and one she seeks to impose unilaterally without negotiating with municipal unions — a decision that resulted in a lawsuit that will be argued on Thursday in the Court of Common Pleas.

If Parker’s mandate is enacted, it will make Philadelphia the only major city in the northeastern United States to require municipal workers to work from the office five days a week.

Boston, Washington, Baltimore, and Pittsburgh have never tried to eliminate hybrid work schedules. Eric Adams’ administration in New York City abandoned the effort to do so after a year and a half. (His press office did not respond to a request for comment.)

“The real issue was hiring for municipal jobs, particularly attorneys and tech people,” said Gale Brewer, a New York City Council member who held hearings on hybrid work for the municipal workforce. “They could go to any law firm or any technology company and work hybrid. So why in the world would they come work for the city for less money?”

Since the pandemic, most city governments have struggled to fill vacant positions in the midst of a tight labor market. Currently, one in five jobs in Philadelphia’s municipal workforce is vacant, and similar numbers prevail in other cities. Opponents of Parker’s mandate say they fear that it will make the crisis worse.

Parker, however, insists that returning to full time in the office is an equity issue because the majority of city workers do not have the ability to work from home. And she argues that return-to-office will boost city services and help restore downtown’s fortunes.

“Virtual work and work from home limits the full realization of Mayor Parker’s promise to the people of Philadelphia of a government everyone can see, touch and feel,” said Camille Duchaussee, Parker’s Chief Administrative Officer. “In person work builds relationships, gives opportunities to network informally, and engage in unscheduled meetings. This will benefit City employees, residents, service delivery, and help resolve equity challenges.”

Before COVID-19, most cities required workers to be in the office five days a week. Then every worker who was able to work from home adopted a fully remote schedule during the first year of the pandemic.

In the last two years, however, hybrid schedules have become the norm for office workers. Peer cities have maintained hybrid options for workers and, in some cases, expanded them.

Only New York tried what Parker is attempting, and it did not last.

Some of Philadelphia’s peer cities have also sought to establish a post-pandemic norm this year.

In Baltimore, Mayor Brandon Scott moved to standardize the city’s telework policy beginning in January. The city estimates that 3,000 of 12,000 municipal workers are affected.

City workers are now required to be in the office at least three days a week, although the details are worked out between individual departments and their staffs.

“Agencies have flexibility to determine whether or not they provide access to those two telework days,” said Faith P. Leach, Baltimore’s chief administrative officer. “So if there are challenges with performance, or if they are customer-facing roles, then the agencies can determine that those teams or individuals are required in the office five days a week.”

Leach said the new hybrid work policy wasn’t negotiated with the unions officially, but they were briefed on the mayor’s plans and their feedback was taken into account before the policy was rolled out.

In Washington, Mayor Muriel Bowser reduced the number of telework days available this year, as well. Previously, the city allowed office workers to operate out of their homes two days a week, but in March, the local government reduced it to only one day of teleworking allowed.

In Pittsburgh, the majority of the city workforce reports in-person, though some departments are following a hybrid plan that allows staffers to work remotely two days a week, a city spokesperson said.

And in Boston, officials implemented a formal hybrid work policy in early 2023 that allows for some employees to work remotely two days a week with their department head’s approval.

Under the 12-page policy, supervisors are empowered to require that workers be in the office on specific days of the week. Employees must pay for their own internet, and their hybrid work schedule is not to be used as “a substitute for dependent care,” meaning that they’re expected to obtain adequate child or elder care.

Earlier this year, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s administration negotiated with the city’s locals of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees to expand work options further, including giving employees the opportunity of a four-day work week, so long as they put in the same amount of hours that they would in a five-day workweek.

“In an era of hybrid work for office-based employees, the city is committed to offer the same kind of flexibility for our frontline workers,” Wu’s office said in a statement.

New York City first ordered its workers into the office five days a week in late 2021 under Mayor Bill DeBlasio. When Eric Adams took over in 2022, he doubled down on anti-remote work rhetoric, and in June of that year sent all city employees a reminder that the in-office order was mandatory.

“All city employees should be advised that ... you are required to report to work in person for every scheduled workday, and hybrid schedules of any kind are not permitted,” Adams’ letter read.

But a year later, Adams walked back his hardball stance. In June 2023, the Wall Street Journal reported that the mayor had negotiated a plan with municipal employees to allow more than a quarter of the workforce to work from home two days a week. Details would be left up to individual agencies to determine, although the Building Department was declared an early adopter — in part to salve severe worker shortages.

“The developers were so, so, so upset because they were waiting six or seven months [for project approval],” remembers Brewer, the New York City Council member. ”That agency was decimated. It’s improved a little [since hybrid work was readopted]. But we lost a year of hiring. We lost expertise.”