This week, Chris Aylward, national president of Canada's largest public sector union, warned Canadians they were facing “a summer of discontent.”
Mr. Aylward, of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, had joined leaders of three other public sector unions to announce that they had launched a series of legal challenges to the federal government's requirement that most of their members show up on site I work at least three days a week starting in September. And they said they would take “coordinated actions” leading to disruptions as a pressure tactic.
For most Canadians, the ability to work primarily from home disappeared some time ago along with the pandemic health threat. In January, This was reported by Statistics Canada that 20% of people, including public employees, spend most of their working time at home. This is well below the 40% level at the height of the pandemic, but still higher than the 2019 level of 7%.
Return-to-office mandates remain a major source of contention within the federal public service. It was one of the key issues behind a 15-day strike just over a year ago. But that pro-labor action has not translated into an agreement giving public employees the right to work primarily from home.
Many public workers, such as prison and border guards, cannot work remotely, but the government now requires everyone else to report to the workplace at least twice a week. Mr. Aylward and other union leaders said at their news conference that many of their members have difficulty finding workspace or equipment when they arrive. Everyone argued that adding another day would exacerbate these problems.
“This bad decision drives workers into bankruptcy by pushing them into physical offices,” Aylward said. He added that more commuting would undermine Canada's climate goals and suggested that government offices could become residential buildings to help with the housing crisis.
Most importantly, union leaders said the decision was a political move by Justin Trudeau's Liberal government to appease Doug Ford, the Progressive Conservative premier of Ontario who recently said he would like to see more workers, as well as commercial owners, return backwards. in city centres.
One factor that has not helped the government's cause is that most public officials learned of the plan, which comes into force on September 9, from a report in The Ottawa Citizen based on a leaked memo. (Executive-level public officials should be present four days a week.)
Anita Anand, the minister responsible for the Treasury Board and, therefore, personnel matters, told reporters that the decision was made by senior civil servants, not politicians.
Myah Tomasi, Ms. Anand's press secretary, did not respond to questions about how that group settled into the office for three days. She said the Government had verified that offices would be able to accommodate staff as they appeared more frequently.
“It's a real disaster – said the prof. Linda Duxbury of Carleton University's Sprott School of Business, who began studying remote work long before the pandemic. “The union's arguments are not convincing. The union has no right to dictate. Where you work is in the hands of the employer.”
At the same time, he added, “the government of Canada is trying to do it the simplest way, focusing on days. The most difficult way, which is the correct one, is to concentrate on work.”
Professor Duxbury said private sector employers with effective return-to-work programs look at a variety of factors to determine how much workplace time is needed for each job, including “how much time is spent interacting with the customer, how much creativity is involved, how much innovation is needed, and how much time is needed for things that we know require in-person interaction.” Those reviews, he said, found that while some jobs can be done entirely remotely, others may require attendance five days a week, and many fall somewhere in between.
Union leaders were vague about what kind of “workplace action” would kick off the summer of upheaval. Perhaps for good reason: any kind of slowdown or job abandonment would be treated by the government as illegal under labor law.
A union representing Canada Border Services Agency employees is in contract negotiations and could, in theory, go on a legal strike. But a government official told me that 80% of its members are essential workers who cannot strike.
Professor Duxbury said that if the unions make good on their threat, the outcome is certain.
“I don't expect a lot of sympathy from the Canadian public,” he said.
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Born in Windsor, Ontario, Ian Austen studied in Toronto, lives in Ottawa and has written about Canada for the New York Times for twenty years. Follow him on Bluesky a @ianausten.bsky.social.
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