PSAC national executive vice-president Alex Silas speaks during a demonstration against the federal government's four-day-a-week return-to-office mandate outside the Prime Minister's Office in Ottawa on Monday.PATRICK DOYLE/The Canadian Press
Federal public servants marked the first day of a new requirement to work in the office four days a week with a small protest outside the Prime Minister’s Office, criticizing the plan as a waste of taxpayer dollars.
The Canadian Association of Professional Employees organized the protest, and it was attended by a senior leader of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, which is the largest union representing public servants.
Several public servants represented by CAPE spoke at the event, questioning the rationale for more time in the office. They said their behind-the-scenes jobs mostly involve computer work and virtual meetings with colleagues in other locations.
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CAPE president Nathan Prier said it was only a few years ago that the federal government was promoting the benefits of hybrid work and declaring it could be a major source of savings.
The 2024 budget announced a plan to save $3.9-billion over 10 years by requiring the government to reduce its office portfolio by 50 per cent. That goal has since been revised, and the government has been announcing plans to buy or lease new office space for public servants.
The government announced earlier this year that all non-executive employees will be required to work on-site four days a week as of July 6, though departments were allowed some leeway. Executives have been required to work in the office five days a week since May 4.
Members of CAPE demonstrate against the federal government's return-to-office mandate outside the Prime Minister's Office on Monday.PATRICK DOYLE/The Canadian Press
“People are stacked on top of each other. They’re sitting for two hours, three hours, depending on the city you live in, commuting to offices just to do virtual work, remote work from the office. You’re just switching your chair, basically,” Mr. Prier told reporters.
“We think that this is more of an ideological operation to blame public servants for a deficit that we didn’t cause, while at the same time, just throwing billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars down the hole, just to make workers less productive.”
Reporters asked Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne about public servants’ concerns on Monday at an event in Ottawa launching the government’s prebudget consultations.
“First of all, I want to thank them,” he said. “We need to bring people back to deliver service to Canadians, and at the same time, do that in a way that would allow people to provide those services in the most efficient way for Canadians.”
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In response to a question about plans in the 2024 budget to shrink office space, the minister acknowledged that approach has changed.
“We need to revise that, and we’ve been working with the Treasury Board to adjust that and do that in the most efficient manner, obviously, to support the infrastructure that will be needed to have the people here in the office,” he said.
A third union, the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, announced on Monday that its board of directors has approved a multimillion-dollar contribution to its strike fund.
PIPSC president Sean O’Reilly said in a statement that the decision marks the seriousness of the current moment in terms of the government’s relationship with its unionized employees as they head into collective bargaining for new contracts.
PIPSC said the size of the additional payment will be finalized later this year, but that the money would add to the million-dollar contribution made last year. The union did not reveal the current size of its fund, which would be used to provide workers with strike pay in the event of a work stoppage.
Listed reasons for the strike-fund boost include job cuts, “arbitrary” return-to-office mandates, a growing reliance on private contractors “and constant pressure to do more with less.”
Collective agreements between unions representing specific bargaining units and the federal Treasury Board expire at different times. Bargaining units are based on occupational groups, such as program and administrative services, operational services, health services or information technology.