LINCOLN- The State of Nebraska did not knowingly violate a Commission on Industrial Relations order when managers notified some state employees they were terminating previously approved work-from-home or remote-work agreements. Lancaster County District Court Judge Andrew Jacobsen ruled that the state did not “willfully” disregard the CIR order telling it to stand pat on Gov. Jim Pillen’s return-to-work executive order by ending arrangements approved before Pillen issued his order.

Jacobsen, in a six-page order, said the Nebraska Department of Administrative Services and other state agency leaders had met and tried to figure out what the order allowed and did not. They also sought clarity from the CIR in a formal filing. “That is exactly what the state should have done,” he wrote. “The state’s actions are not those of a party thumbing its nose at a tribunal. They are instead the actions of a party laboring to understand how a tribunal’s order should be applied to policies not considered by the tribunal.”

Justin Hubly, executive director of NAPE, said on Monday that the state has “fallen in line” and started following the spirit of the CIR order and that agencies stopped terminating employees’ remote-work arrangements. “We had to hold our members’ rights up and hold the state accountable,” Hubly said. “We’re glad they’re following it now. We wish they would’ve followed it out of the gate.”

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