The Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS) says it does not know how many federal employees holding membership with one of the country’s largest unions work from home.
“As such, it is not possible to determine the number of Public Service Alliance of Canada [PSAC] members working from home versus those working in the office.”
‘Virtual Work Is Voluntary’
The PSAC represents nearly 230,000 federal workers across provinces and territories, including those stationed overseas. On April 19, over 155,000 of its members working for TBS and the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) set up picket lines at more than 250 locations across the country demanding “fair wages.” The strike ended on May 1 after a tentative agreement was reached between the union and the federal government.The agreement covers not only the specifics for wages, but also the terms for remote work.
“Employee rights around telework arrangements will be protected through a grievance process.”
‘No Comprehensive Data’
Fortier was responding to Smith, who said she made “concessions” about telework after being quoted for saying she wanted consistency across departments and that the return-to-office mandate was not an issue to be decided at the collective bargaining table.“Do you have any numbers that you could provide to us in terms of how many people within PSAC are working at home versus the office?” Smith asked.
“We don’t necessarily have all the numbers from all the departments,” Fortier replied.
Smith said he asked because the “numbers of public servants are growing,” particularly those holding membership with PSAC.
“[W]hen you look at numbers growing and the costs associated with the number of people within that particular group, you start to ask what types of efficiencies we are getting out of that group.”
“We didn’t send the government or department a formal request for information regarding telework, but we did ask questions informally to people at the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat and a number of other departments,” Giroux said.
“We were told that there were no comprehensive data on the number of employees teleworking across the public service.”
“A few ministers said publicly that there wasn’t any research to indicate whether or not public servants on telework were more or less productive than when they worked in the office,” he added.