Nebraska state worker with new baby quits after Pillen’s order to end remote work

LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) – A Beatrice woman feels she was forced to quit her job after the governor mandated that state employees return to work in person.

“I was absolutely shocked,” Rebecca Ward-Pettit said. “I did not expect that.”

She was a business collections agent at the Nebraska Department of Revenue for eight years.

Ward-Pettit said she was told about Gov. Jim Pillen’s executive order while she was on maternity leave, which is part of the reason it surprised her.

“I had asked previously – when I had first found out I was pregnant and again before taking maternity leave – whether or not there had been talk about ending remote working, and I was told no,” she said.

SEE ALSO: Union says Nebraska agencies are ignoring pause of return-to-office order

She said since the pandemic, working from home has increased her productivity.

“Even before our new family, working remote really worked for me because there was less distraction at home,” Ward-Pettit said.

She lives in Beatrice with her husband and son, so the lack of a commute was also beneficial for her work-life balance.

SEE ALSO: Hundreds of state union workers looking for other jobs after Pillen’s return-to-office order

When she was told about the return-to-work order, she immediately started to look for child care options for her new baby.

“When I sat down and crunched the numbers, even if I could have found child care, full-time infant care, it would’ve been more than half of my net pay,” Ward-Pettit said. “That’s just child care; that’s not including cost of fuel and maintenance for commuting, and personal time.”

In December, she decided to quit. And others are unhappy with the order, too.

SEE ALSO: ‘All Nebraskans pay the price’: Union demands to negotiate Pillen’s remote work order

The Nebraska Association of Public Employees Union filed a lawsuit, and the order has been placed on hold.

The judge gave the union and the State of Nebraska until Friday to submit their closing briefs.

The court is expected to rule shortly after that.