Justin Bullock, FISM News

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New York Governor Andrew Cuomo asked businesses throughout New York, but especially in New York City (NYC), to end remote work for their employees in a meeting with the Association for a Better New York. The reason for his request is that he is concerned that both tourism to NYC and local businesses throughout NYC will suffer tremendous hits, which would in turn sharply damage NYC’s economy. He asked NYC businesses to set Labor Day as a target end date to force employees to resume in-person work.

In the meeting Cuomo said,

Remember, we have to get people back and we have to get people back in volume. If you were to see a 15% decline of people coming back to New York City, that would have a devastating impact on the commercial market… We need people coming back. Say to your workforce, ‘By Labor Day, everyone is back in the office.’ … We need that volume to support the restaurants and the shops, the services. It’s not just about your business. It’s about all the spinoff effect economic activity that your workers bring to the surrounding community.

Cuomo’s requests comes after months of flip-flopping with respect to New York’s COVID-19 policy. In December of 2020 he abruptly banned in-person dining throughout the state despite New York City Hospitality Alliance pointing out that the data at that time did not support such a policy decision.

See our statement in response to the closure of indoor dining starting Monday 👇. See our full alert here: https://t.co/kpuMV7zZrg pic.twitter.com/kC9NHIQXxa

— NYC Hospitality Alliance (@theNYCalliance) December 11, 2020

Cuomo switched positions again one month later , by calling for the re-opening of the economy around his state and in NYC in January. Due to this and several other reasons, Cuomo’s popularity across New York and NYC has tanked. As a result, it is unclear if NYC businesses and New Yorkers themselves will listen to Cuomo’s requests.