‘They are scared to death.’ Most SC state employees head back to offices next week
Some South Carolina state employees are concerned after the governor ordered them to return to work in person as the COVID-19 pandemic continues and vaccine access remains limited.
Most of South Carolina’s 73,866 state employees in some 103 state agencies will be required to come back to work in person by Monday, March 15, according to state Department of Administration Kelly Coakley.
The deadline was set after S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster ordered state agency directors on March 5 to submit plans to bring state workers back to the office.
As of March 9, about 33% of state employees — or 24,300 — were still working remotely due to COVID-19, Coakley said.
The decision comes as the state is ramping up vaccination efforts and as COVID-19 cases and deaths decline. About 20% of South Carolinians have received their first dose of vaccine, and only about 11% have received both doses. COVID-19 spread, while dramatically lower than it was in January, is still prolific, with health experts marking an average of 950 new cases a day over the last two weeks.
McMaster’s decision to have nearly all state employees return to the workplace as the pandemic is ongoing sparked concerns from some employees, who characterized it as abrupt.
“Employees are being very careful because they know the pandemic is not done,” S.C. State Employees Association spokesman Carlton Washington said.
Washington said the biggest concerns employees have is about whether they will return to a work environment that deploys appropriate health safety protocols, like proper spacing of work spaces. Employees are concerned about contracting the virus in the office and bringing it home to their families, Washington added.
“I think if you asked most employees, they would tell you that their preference would be not to have to interact in that sort of environment,” Washington said.
Tracie Bradacs, 43, who works in IT at the S.C. Department of Employment and Workforce, is one of those employees concerned about bringing the virus home with her. Bradacs said the governor’s order worries her greatly because her 8-year-old son is immunocompromised due to medication he takes.
According to the Centers of Disease Control, “Children with underlying medical conditions are at increased risk for severe illness compared to children without underlying medical conditions,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website says. One of those underlying conditions is an immunocompromised body due to medication, the CDC says.
“McMaster’s order broke my heart. I’ve done everything to protect my son from getting COVID,” said Bradacs, who has been with DEW nearly eight years.
For the last year, Bradacs said, she and some other DEW workers have been working remotely and the quality of their work remains high.
Bradacs was notified Thursday about the governor’s order and told she had to be at work on Monday. The order allowed for a two-week extension, and Bradacs immediately filed for for one but has not gotten a reply.
“For me, going back to work would jeopardize my son,” Bradacs said. “I’m terrified of my son getting COVID, because his body could not fight it off. I love my job, and I love who I work for, but I love my son more.”
Some of her co-workers are also worried, Bradacs said, because they have compromised health issues themselves or in their families. “They are scared to death.”
“Putting people in a position to choose between their family and the disease is just not necessary, especially when these people can work sufficiently from home and have been,” Bradacs said.
Asked for comment, a DEW spokeswoman said her agency has “worked with the Department of Administration to create and enact a plan to expeditiously and safely return all agency employees to working onsite. Approximately half of the agency’s employees will be returned beginning on March 15 (Monday).”
The DEW spokeswoman continued, “The agency is following all guidance and providing extensions as appropriate for childcare and reviewing requests for reasonable accommodations. The agency is in compliance with social distancing protocols, provides and requires employees to wear face coverings, and regularly cleans our facilities.”
The order for employees to return to work in person also affects public university employees across the state.
University of South Carolina Faculty Senate Chair Mark Cooper said staff at the university felt the governor’s order was “precipitous and insensitive to circumstances on campus.”
“In general, those working remotely have high risk factors and have been very productive in remote work,” Cooper said in an email to The State. “While our campus is committed to a return to normal when safe, the rationale for forcing a full return on this timetable eludes many of us. Faculty are particularly concerned for our hardworking staff.
While the governor believes that state employees should have to return to work in person, like many other South Carolinians have over the last year, his order does allow for exceptions, Governor’s Office spokesman Brian Symmes said.
“The Dept of Administration is working directly with agency heads to allow flexibility for any people who may need some extra time to head back to the office, whether that’s the purpose of needing childcare or someone has a health condition,” Symmes said.
The Department of Administration outlined their allowances to state agencies earlier this week.
If an agency submits a request to return later because the department needs to modify their work space to have better COVID-19 protections, that request may be approved by the Department of Administration, Coakley said. Those plans are required to outline what improvements the agency plans to make and what period of time it would take to implement those changes.
Modifications could include staggering employee start times, spreading out work spaces, using common space like conference rooms as temporary workspace and installing sneeze guards or plexiglass barriers at workstations, Coakley said.
For example, the University of South Carolina requested to be given until April 5 to bring back employees that work in spaces that don’t have sneeze guards or plexiglass in place or don’t have room for at least six feet of spacing between employees. That plan was approved by the Department of Administration, according to university spokesman Jeff Stensland.
Of the 103 state agencies, including institutions of higher education, 77 have asked for extensions, Coakley said. State agencies have one to three weeks to put those safety precautions in place, Coakley said.
Agencies can also submit plans to allow parents whose children participate in online school to work from home until they can find child care, Coakley said.
Coakley said agencies also can work with employees who have conditions that make them particularly susceptible to extreme illness from COVID-19. Those employees could be allowed to work remotely until they get vaccinated.
