Union holds rally for remote work outside of Mayor’s Breakfast event

Article content

Members of the Canadian Association of Professional Employees and other federal unions rallied in front of Ottawa City Hall on Thursday morning to condemn the federal government’s decision to increase public servants’ required office presence.

Treasury Board president Anita Anand was the special guest at Mark Sutcliffe’s monthly Mayor’s Breakfast on Thursday, a two-hour event that included presentations and an interview between Sutcliffe and Anand.

Article content

Article content

The Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat updated its policy on remote work earlier this month, requiring public servants to spend at least three days a week in the office by mid-September. Executives will be expected on-site at least four days a week.

Members from various unions, including the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC) and the Union of Safety and Justice Employees (USJE) attended the rally hosted by CAPE. Many held signs with messages like “housing not offices” and “telework keeps life local.”

Sonia O’Brien-Colterman, USJE’s regional vice-president for the RCMP in the National Capital Region, said that, while many of the union’s members worked on-site, a “large contingent” did administrative work, especially in the Ottawa region.

“Because of the way the Treasury Board has phrased this, everybody’s just all lumped in together,” O’Brien-Colterman said. “We’d just like the option to have some flexibility.”

‘Hybrid work is important,’ says Anand

Anand spoke with Sutcliffe about her political journey and the work she’s done in various government positions.

Article content

When asked about remote work, the minister said the decision was made by the public service and was not a political decision. She said the return to the workplace had been “difficult,” noting that COVID was “so hard on our workforce.”

“Hybrid work is important,” Anand said. “It is important to have flexibility. It is important to be able to hear from public servants and employees generally about what they need to cope in the workplace.”

Anand said that the change from two to three days to three days on-site was “still in the range” of the policy that was in place before she became Treasury Board president, adding that people’s focus should be on the possibility of accommodations and exceptions for public servants who need them.

“I really have faith that we will do more with the telework options so that public servants feel continually supported,” Anand said.

Anand said in a statement to this newspaper that the policy update was an administrative decision taken by TBS, working with the Privy Council and deputy ministers from across the government. The minister said she had and would continue prioritizing relationships with unions, noting that she had met “on several occasions” with leaders from across the public service.

Article content

Member of Parliament for Ottawa-Vanier and former Treasury Board president Mona Fortier said there was still a “very strong hybrid model” in place.

The decision to change the remote work policy has induced frustration from employees and unions, with several groups filing unfair labour practice complaints and policy grievances.

PSAC and CAPE promised the government a “summer of discontent” over the issue,  including letter-writing campaigns and encouraging their members to contact Anand and their members of Parliament to ask them to withdraw the forthcoming decision.

‘We need to work together,’ says Sutcliffe

The campaign organized by CAPE stated that the federal government was “bending to political pressure” rather than supporting its employees.

Before the decision was announced, Ontario Premier Doug Ford urged the federal government to send its workers back to the office.

While Sutcliffe has said the change would be beneficial for downtown Ottawa and public transit, he told reporters on Thursday that he “never made any request of the federal government privately or publicly with regard to the number of days that employees are working in the office.”

Article content

Sutcliffe said he was excited to see new ideas from the Ottawa Board of Trade on downtown revitalization. Their strategy, released Wednesday, outlined that 40,000 more people could live downtown by 2034 through various measures, including repurposing federal buildings.

CAPE’s president, Nathan Prier, said Thursday that it was “really unclear” what justified the policy update, noting that no data or explanation had been provided and that the 2024 budget committed to converting half of federal buildings into housing.

“We think that the path through all of this is to grant remote work rights, have an idea of what you actually need for office space for occasional meetings, for collaboration, and then start really coming up with a community plan,” Prier said, adding that the union was likely going to support the Ottawa Board of Trade’s plan for downtown.

A report by the Angus Reid Institute, published Thursday, found that a majority of Canadians (59 per cent) supported public servants spending more time in the office.

Our website is your destination for up-to-the-minute news, so make sure to bookmark our homepage and sign up for our newsletters so we can keep you informed.

Article content