There are close to 225,000 people employed by the State of California.

Of those, 130,000 show up every work day at whatever state agency issues their paycheck.

Gov. Gavin Newsom now wants the other 95,000 to report in person for work a minimum of four days a week starting July 1.

Newsom’s order is being called “harsh,” “unjust,” “not fai” and ‘bad management” by those who do not want to do so.

The governor believes it is an issue of fairness. And he states, “In person working makes us all stronger — period.”

Newsom, in issuing his executive order, went on to stress: “When we work together, collaboration improves, innovation thrives, and accountability increases. That means better service, better solutions, and better results for Californians while still allowing flexibility.”

State worker labor union leaders dismiss Newsom’s order as hogwash pointing to studies that favor their position that remote work increases productivity, saves money for the state, and increases employee well-being.

Newsom has already won an arbitration decision brought against his office requiring workers to report to offices at least two days a week 11 months ago. The decision, which is being appealed, was brought by the union representing state attorneys.

Rest assured, legal challenges to the governor’s authority to have workers the state pays to report to an office for work will continue.

If you think Newsom is moving to require all workers to report to the agency that employs them 80 percent of the days they are paid to work, save for exceptions granted on a case-by-case basis is just a ploy to improve his presidential race chances in 2026, guess again. At the end of the day, Newsom, as governor, runs the state bureaucracy. He was entrusted by voters to do so. Newsom is no different than Chase Bank CEO Jaime Dimon, who has stood fast on his order that the bank’s employees must return to the office if they want to keep their jobs.

The governor was “hired” by voters to make sure California delivers services and such in the most effective manner. It is the same fiduciary responsibility Dimon has to Chase Bank’s shareholders.

But what if Newsom is wrong? And what if labor unions which will undoubtedly seek courts to intervene make their core argument in the legal arena, boosting employment productivity, saving money for taxpayers, and reducing the stress of getting to and from an office to do work in order to collect a paycheck are right?

But do they really want to encase those “standards” in a legal precedent to direct future governors’ decision making regarding the workplace parameters to put productivity, stress reduction, and saving money as absolutes at the top of the list? Perhaps they’ve never heard of artificial intelligence and bots?

The real question is how many of the jobs that can apparently be done remotely also be done remotely via the cloud with little help from actual flesh-and-blood state workers that Newsom apparently wants to stress out by making them show up at the office.

I’m not a big fan of texting bots or talking with machines when dealing with corporations.

But I’ve got to admit in the past year or so, AI has made such interactions more efficient and reduced the need to be transferred to an actual person who, with a little luck, is easier to understand when they talk than I am.

Computers don’t get stressed, they cost a lot less, and since they don’t take breaks and can work 24/7, making things more efficient.

Not wishing to venture into the obvious with the rancor coming from along the banks of the Potomac these days, but a lot of white collar office jobs that aren’t much more involved than following preordained policies and pushing the proverbial paper have been either streamlined or eliminated in the private sector.

A lot of it has been the result of having to change to weather and survive economic tsunamis caused by everything from recessions to government mandated COVID-19 shutdowns.

If there is no longer a premium on dealing directly with the public face-to-face, then there is a bigger opportunity to replace workers with AI programs.

You need the DMV clerks to handle paperwork and such that needs to be done face-to-face. But do we need those in the DMV headquarters that basically verify information required and ‘shuffle paper” which is now basically data entered into computers?

Perhaps the time has come to find out.

Sacramento is less than two hours away from ground zero of technology advances.

If his authority is undercut legally on the strategy labor unions are pursuing, Newsom may opt to capitalize on “losing.” It’s because he’d have a clear legal precedent that his first obligation legally is not to provide jobs but to make sure state work is performed in a way that saves the money, reduces the potential for stress to be inflicted during the process of doing a task, and increases productivity.

There’s no better way to do that than to devise AI driven systems that divert what workload computers can do to the point the state can reduce its reliance on the apparently “cruel and unusual punishment” of having workers actually report to state offices that apparently are a step or two above Soviet era gulags.

Newsom needs to unchain as many of the 95,000 state workers who are fighting returning to the office. Who knows, maybe Chase Bank will hire them?

It’s not enough to end the “tyranny” of making people report to a physical place to work if they want to earn a paycheck. Most of those working remotely aren’t rocket scientists or attorneys. Sacramento needs to completely embrace AI to free paper pushers from state offices along the Capitol Mall and throughout the River City to end the “heartless” practice of demanding 95,000 people actually reporting to an office to earn a paycheck.

Free them from the chains of being a government employee. Let them free to pursue opportunities to work for the likes of Jaime Dimon, Tim Cook, Doug McMillon (the head honcho at Walmart) and, do I dare say, Elon Musk.

—  This column is the opinion of Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of The Courier or 209 Multimedia. He may be reached at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com