Hanif asks about city employee remote work cases and policy

Thank you, Councilmember Joseph.

Could you tell us a little bit more about the cases coming from city agency employees on remote work access?

For those, I can't think of off the top of my head.

I apologize.

It's something that we may need to circle back on, Chair Hanif.

But thinking about just sibling agency cases overall, right, we are often pursuing and settling matters,

particularly in the employment field, right?

We've had several settlements with New York City Transit employees in the subway systems.

We've also recently had a settlement in the public accommodation space as New York City Transit, as you mentioned in your opening, where we were able to really secure a

meaningful financial compensation for those individuals that were refused entry on buses because of their reliance on a service animal.

But then also reaching postings really across all five boroughs in bus depots and in the buses themselves so that individuals know, right, you have a right to enter this bus with your service animal.

And here are the appropriate questions that any bus operator should be able to ask and receive answers for.

And I'll just say for city employees, right, city agencies have their EEO officer, which is the first stop,

and then there can be an internal appeal, or if your reasonable accommodation request is denied, that could come to CCHR or go to the EEOC or the state division.

So there's a kind of multiplicity of venues where those cases might end up.

Got it.

Yeah, I'm very.

curious about remote work access being denied, given there was a huge fight by city employees to get a more clarified policy on the ability to work remote.

So we can certainly circle back, but what's the current policy on remote work access?

So I think, I mean, the city, like everyone else under the city human rights law, right, is if someone requests an accommodation,

again, the first stop is the EEO officer is going to look at the particular position, what the individual's needs and limitations are, and then discuss what are feasible, you know, accommodations.

And that, you know, is...

Also lives alongside the collective bargaining agreements and all of the other rules, but it's going to be very, again, as the assistant commissioner was saying, it's very job specific because if you have a frontline,

you know, public facing position, it's different than if you are someone who's doing something where you're not interacting with the public.