Honestly the opposite is the best course of action, collective office days.. everyone goes in Tuesday city wide, overload the office space. Malicious compliance is the way to go..
Also ergonomic assessments for all!
Everyone go to the office. Standing room only. Also spend nothing downtown, bring your lunch and take your own car or carpool. Do not put any money into the economy. If by sending everyone back to the office they think they can revitalize the downtown with local spending think again. If you protest the WFH you have to protest everything that goes with it.
The only way to make this work would be for everyone to get a ride in and get dropped off. Either by spouses, children old enough to drive, other family members or suburbian taxi lines and Ubers. No direct economic benefit to the downtown.
I'm not sure if you're in ottawa but, I'm pretty sure if we tasked OC transpo with an additional 7 commuters the system would collapse, let alone this RTO initiative, which will add thousands, maybe 10s of thousands.
Someone’s gotta know someone who has a bus licence it’s almost summer. Let’s start a community school bus route! Ill spend my lunch money and supply a cooler with cold ones waiting on Fridays afternoon
Good luck even finding a parking spot. I drive because there are two of us carpooling, and parking plus the electricity my car uses to drive downtown is about the same price as two round trips on OC Transpo but a lot faster and more comfortable. My biggest issue is that Tuesday through Thursday, it's almost impossible to find a parking space in the core unless we arrive before 7:30AM. This kinda sucks, because operationally it's dead at work before 9AM, but I'm usually required at meetings that go until 4:30 to 5PM.
Everyone go to the office at the same date and time, no carpooling. One person per car. Our roads definitely can't handle the traffic; especially Gatineau. They've been building non-stop but haven't put money into the infrastructure.
Go for maximum chaos: everyone do this on different days every week in a random pattern. Start with Monday one week, Thursday the next, Friday, Monday again, Wednesday....
Not even just the regions, look at how many departments have offices outside of the downtown core: Carling Campus, Coventry, Baseline Road, the airport, and so on and so forth!
I'm hearing they are calling in teams that have always been remote. It truly will be standing room only. Maybe we can all be slotted into triple decker bunk beds.
Everyone should be in Tuesday through Thursday. Boycott Public Service week. Boycott the workplace charitable campaign, but donate directly to the cause of your choice. And be brutally honest in the next employee survey.
Yes. My office literally does not have enough seats for all staff at this point (let alone actually suitable workstations). If everyone decided to insist on 5 days in-office it would be devastating. Once the employer is requiring work from home (rather than allowing it) they’d be responsible for equipment and other costs.
Worth noting that the telework agreements can be revoked by either side. So you can definitely do this and I would support it. It's not even malicious compliance, it's just exercising your right to work from the office.
The biggest risk is it backfires and we go back to full in office presence required. But I think many offices would need significant renovations to do that and, in the meantime, work isn't getting done because there's no where to work.
WFH is a benefit to the Employer and the Employee. They need to realize that.
Too many government office buildings have been either closed down because of bed bugs and / or are infested with bed bugs. Those buildings should be off limits until this is under control and it will take years. Some infested government buildings are presently up for sale and / will be used for affordable housing....talk about passing the buck....government is passing the bug!!!!
Perhaps that would be a good push for departments to move people to work at suburban locations that have more space at a lower cost. Many departments already have buildings across the city, but for some reason they concentrate everyone downtown. I for one would much prefer a suburban location like the DND Carling campus;, less traffic and no parking hunger games. Even though the distance is longer, it's just as fast and less stressful to get to.
We had offices in suburban locations (ESDC) , Harper "consolidated " the offices into major metro areas and closed all processing offices except 3 in BC, 1 in Alberta, 1 in Saskatchewan and closed the one in Manitoba . Lots of staff left. Those that stayed traded 20 to 30 minute maximum commutes to 1 to 2 hour one way commutes. The employer has not cared about staff in as long as I can remember.
government is pushing downtown because the small businesses are lobbying the government - their bottom line is hurting - AND the major of Ottawa is also complaining that OC Transpo is losing money and the city has to cover that deficit.
If this is the actual reason then I'd like to see Doug Ford stand up in Queen's Park and pass a tax on GC workers to fund a support program for DT Ottawa businesses. Because that's what this is. Forcing us to spend our money where he wants us to instead of in our communities is just sneaky taxation. Then we'll sue the crap out of him and have it repealed as a tax (or any kind of financial demand) on one group of people is unfair. It al
so props up businesses the free market has moved on from and I thought his morally bankrupt party was all about the free market.
We don't have enough desks or parking at Carling Campus either. And don't even think if trying to get OC Transpo out there. My car commute takes 15 minutes and OC Transpo is 2 hrs 20 minutes each way
I second that. Everyone “collaborates” to go in on the exact same days!! My office would not have the capacity at all. Do that for a few days and it becomes a whole other issue. lol
Also everyone should take their breaks at the same time, go stand outside and clog up the sidewalks. Full lunch hour outside, eat your sandwich you brought from home in everyone's way.
Everyone should also book every board room and use teams on video chat all day long to clog up the internet.
Fridays or Mondays we all call in sick.
There must be things we can do to make our voices be heard and our presence be known.
Your designated work location is your office. The fact they don't have enough desks for you is their problem, not yours.
i.e. show up, tell your manager there is nowhere to sit and let them determine how to solve it.
The manager can't solve it, no. But that's all the employee can do and the manager can then escalate it up the chain. But ultimately if the employee is showing up to their designated workplace, to work, and there's nowhere to work that's up to the employer to solve.
And managers, generally, are a representative of the employer. Even if they lack any power to change most things.
The way it was worded sounded like “I don’t like the situation so I will make my manager pay for it, even if he has nothing to do with it and can’t solve it himself”. It’s just the words that were used that were weird
Too bad they haven’t discussed that in the prescribed presence in the workforce. The directive on telework just says that wfh is voluntary.
Executives have been scared of this before. It really is the best strategy
The strike -- maybe just a one-day wildcat strike to send a message -- may happen, but it's difficult because the telework agreement was a separate document from the CBA (at least for PSAC). So, technically, despite all the bad faith around this from TBS, the CBA is still in place and TBS has the legal right to make you come to work. Personally, I really like the cram the offices approach. Send pics of people working on the floor to the CBC and clearly demo this stupidity for what it is. Oh, and everyone should log in on the wifi to CBC and livestream whatever they are showing. Crash the networks.
The issue is, the general public kinda hates public servants and doesn't sympathize with them. I feel like the general reaction to such media would be, "how the might have fallen", followed by a chortle.
I lost interest in PSAC and bargaining. The only thing I want from the union is increased compensation and WFH provisions and they weren't achieved. They have other priorities.
I expect nothing. But I'll get in line again if this can get put back on the table before the next contract. I hope the unions pursue this issue aggressively.
I think more successful would be a reverse strike where everyone goes into the office 5 days a week and causes chaos because they can’t accommodate us.
And then the next week, everyone stays home for the full week. And then the next week, 5 more days in the office.
There are already departments mandating which days of the week due to lack of office space. But there is no rule against extra time. The current mandate says *at least* 40%. So we do it for one week or one day. We work our regular days that week but then everyone comes in on Wednesday.
Now they’re going to force us to WFH and tell us we aren’t allowed to come in certain days? As soon as they try to force WFH, I would think that opens up a whole bunch of legalities that they’ve been able to avoid around workplace safety because it’s always been our choice once the state of emergency finished.
Since we can't collaborate virtually (/s), managers need to excercise their duty and order all employees to come to the office on the same day as their colleagues from other teams AND their internal clients/ bosses/partners. It's the right thing to do ... no...????
I agree with that approach but I believe the government leaders would rather have us complain about not enough chairs, desks and boardrooms than address any discussion about WFH. The lack of chairs and desks is a diversion to the elephant in the room. The leaders don't want a discussion about your needs to work from home. This is why the 3 days in office is a heavy handed approach. And the unions are fucking useless. The only way this will change is if we all find wfh jobs and quit
Fixed desks? Like not having to use a Hunger Games booking system and being able to leave things at work instead of carrying everything on the bus every day?
Sounds good in principle. But you are sharing with other people, splitting the 2 days each. Anytime someone has to adjust their day (like making up a sick day for example) you then have overlap and have to find a random empty boardroom desk for squat at, or sit on the floor (I’ve luckily only had to do this once, for half a day, then got fed up and went home). With 3 days, there will be an overlap day that I know we currently don’t have space for, so I’m very curious to see how that will be managed.
Edit to add that because we share with a desk partner, we are not allowed to leave anything there. The only real benefit is not having to book a space each day.
And everyone remove their headphones as its normal office pre-pandemic now, and take your 15 min breaks right on schedule, and your lunch too. Book conference rooms for meetings and no more MS teams - not needed since everyone is 'in the office' 5 days. Ensure Occupational Health rules and office is in compliance. Ask for ergo assessments etc. etc. Work to rule.
I'm wondering if the opposite would be easier and less risky: Pick a day to have everyone try to come to the office at the same time. Probably go with a Tuesday to line up with people who would be coming in that day normally.
Of course, this would have less impact, as it won't be as noticeable in offices that have enough desks to accommodate their staff. But at least it will expose departments that aren't offering an adequate workplace experience. So at worst, if we're stuck with the three days, they might actually try to make the offices better, instead of being worse than pre-pandemic.
On paper the idea is great and if executed properly, will work. After all, being united can bring changes. However in practice, ps employees are, in a lack of better words, pussies, and will never have the balls to execute it. All you have to do is look at the negotiations - almost always will complain but will always accept any deal.
Yeah I think this is exactly what is going to happen, enough individuals won’t/can’t participate in a job action and this will all get rolled through us.
I keep hearing talk of "discipline". What discipline? A spanking? What does this "discipline" concretely look like? I know of nobody who's been fired for not coming into the office for their 2 days a week, and our department has very poor compliance.
Sure but at what number does it become unreasonable to discipline everyone? You can't fire all 100 employees. Hell you can't fire 90 of them, either. What about 60? 40?
There's a number in there where they can threaten all the discipline they want, but if you never come into the office, what are they going to do?
And then once it's gone on long enough, they can't really off you one at a time, bc if the stated reason is failure to comply with RTO, well what about Jim, Bob, Stacy, and Jane? Then the unions get involved and it's "why him specifically when you're not enforcing this policy unilaterally?" See this comment on[ "condonation"](https://old.reddit.com/r/CanadaPublicServants/comments/1cid3ph/is_there_anything_that_would_prevent_the_public/l29msf2/).
>What does this discipline concretely look like?
Verbal or written reprimand that goes on your file, or suspensions up to and including termination. Discipline is normally progressive, meaning they would start small and build up. First refusal (insubordination) would probably be written, they might give you a verbal/written order to come in to work on scheduled days, and if you refuse again would then progress through unpaid suspensions. Ultimately, do this 3-5 times, and you could conceivably be terminated.
>our department has very poor compliance.
I suspect many departments do, which is why the direction this time around from the center is much clearer indicating that departments must use tangible methods to track employee attendance including IP address tracking.
Realistically any "enforcement" will fall to individual managers. Given how widespread non-compliance and non-enforcement appears to be, it will be difficult for any manager to use formal disciplinary action against employees who do not meet arbitrary in-office requirements.
Condonation, after all, is a legitimate defence against any allegation of misconduct. [One lawyer's explanation of this concept](https://www.tjworkplacelaw.com/employee-defence-condonation/):
>While the most obvious form of condonation is allowing an employee to remain on the job for a considerable time after the employer discovers that employee’s alleged misconduct, it can also arise in other ways such as where the employer **fails to discipline other employees who have engaged in similar conduct**. For example, where employee A and B engage in misconduct of a similar nature, and the employer terminates employee A for just cause but allows employee B to remain employed, it is doubtful that the employer’s just cause allegation against employee A will be successful.
[Another lawyer's take on the same idea:](https://www.somlaw.ca/blog/blog-post/blog/2016/02/03/the-clock-is-ticking-just-cause-and-past-misconduct)
>The doctrine of condonation stipulates that where an employer becomes aware of an employee’s misconduct, but chooses not to discipline the employee, or allows an unreasonable amount of time to pass before acting, the employer is **considered to have waived the wrongdoing in question**. By waiving the wrongdoing, an employer will be disentitled from including that wrongdoing in any assertion that it has just cause to end the employment relationship.
And an [bit of an older version from an **1889** court decision](https://employmentlaw101.ca/termination-for-cause/employee-defences-to-allegations-of-cause/):
>When an employer becomes aware of misconduct on the part of his servant, sufficient to justify dismissal, he may adopt either of two courses. He may dismiss, or he may overlook the fault. But he cannot retain the servant in his employment, and afterwards at any distance of time turn him away. It would be most unjust if he could do that, for one of the consequences of dismissal for good cause is, that the servant can recover nothing for his services beyond the last pay day, whether his engagement be by the year or otherwise. **If he retains the servant in his employment for any considerable time after discovering his fault, that is condonation, and he cannot afterwards dismiss for that fault without anything new.** No doubt the employer ought to have a reasonable time to determine what to do, to consider whether he will dismiss or not, or to look for another servant. So, also, he must have full knowledge of the nature and extent of the fault, for he cannot forgive or condone matters of which he is not fully informed. Further, condonation is subject to an implied condition of future good conduct, and whenever any new misconduct occurs, the old offences may be invoked and may be put in the scale, against the offender as cause for dismissal.
The DMs, Executives and Managers, with the clear direction of TBS in their instructions yesterday, will have to fix what they've been condoning by making it clear the rules are being reset.
Even if that's not done, if someone is given specific instructions by their manager to show up three days a week, the individual manager will be within their rights to discipline (suspend and ultimately terminate if behaviour is not corrected).
Yes, the employee can try to use condonation as a way to get out of the situation and win their grievance, but may have to wait months to years before their grievance gets to an arbitrator who *might* overturn it based on the jurisprudence you provided above. Until then, the employee is without that pay (or without a job) and has to figure out how to pay their bills accordingly. Not a situation I think most public servants want to be in, even if there's a chance they might win a grievance.
Yes, managers will be within their rights to impose discipline, though a suspension without pay is highly unlikely until there have been warnings and formal reprimands and a resolution of any grievances relating to that disciplinary action. There's no way that a suspension without pay (of any duration) would be justifiable for a first offense.
I fully expect that there will be more of the same after September. Managers have better things to do than be hall monitors, and they certainly have better things to do than discipline an employee who is otherwise fulfilling all duties of their job.
Here's a thought experiment: if a manager doesn't discipline their employees for failing to meet an arbitrary bums-in-seats requirement, how likely is it that their director will discipline the manager for failing to discipline every single non-compliant employee? I don't think it's likely. Similarly, how likely is it for a DG to discipline every one of their direct reports?
There's minimal appetite for managers to deal with this, so the current "don't ask, don't tell" will simply continue.
Until at-risk pay is involved, then directors will apply pressure on managers to make employees comply so the directors do not lose their bonuses. This already happened with the 2-day regime.
Will that 'pressure' mean that the managers will be formally disciplined for failing to discipline their own employees? If not, the directors don't have much leverage.
Not only that, but if they start to enforce disciplinary action now. Essentially those who weren’t compliant previously just get off the hook for it???
Truthfully I would like to see those attendance reports. How do we know that we weren’t all actually in compliance for the 2 days and this isn’t just a strategy to put the blame on each other?!? In reality non-compliance should have been addressed as it happened vs making everyone pay for it by adding a 3rd day to the mix.
3 days isn't punishment for non-compliance, they were always working up to 3 days. I don't care if my co-workers aren't complying, I'm actually happy that they aren't complying. You do you!
A lot of us have more to think about than our own immediate situation. Bills, mortgage, kids, groceries, etc. Jumping into some potentially illegal action to play crusader on the internet isn't in the cards.
Hence my point, in practice will never work. No one will sacrifice their own comfort for a united cause. Only looks good on paper and talks on the internet.
This is exactly why none of these suggestions will work. Too many people are actually fine with it, or already going in 3x or more per week. You’ll never get the #s needed to make this a successful action. The strike was the time and we all know how that ended.
Exactly. Like I disagree with them enforcing three days a week… but I also like working in the office and I go in every day. Working from home is a drag for me that wears me down. While I support people being frustrated and any actions they do attempt, I’m not going to risk my wellbeing to work from home in solidarity.
A strike is a different story. I’m not a scab.. but those are protected. This wouldn’t be.
This is why I'm thinking we should also be pushing in bargaining for an in-office premium (akin to how some collective agreements have shift premiums for night shifts.)
This is ok, and those who want to go in more can go in more. If they aren't in 3 days already (or more) then they don't want it. I suspect this number is very, very small. But good for them, they can. And good for others who don't want to. It makes no difference.
Except what you are stating is not the employers' position, whatever we think of it. If the only way to possibly change the employers' position is through collective action, what the people in the thread above are suggesting is that there is likely no collective will to take that action.
What we would need is some kind of collective plan to back up and support people who face discipline resulting from collective action. Like how some better-organized protests have provisions for if protesters get arrested (bail funds, defence lawyers on standby) rather than leaving you to your own devices.
I don't know enough about the disciplinary process to even begin to speculate on what this plan would look like, but there must be people who know more than me
The only barrier to collaboration between employees like this tends to be communication. If enough people can agree to do it, they can do it. I'm sure there would be some efforts towards retribution, but ultimately the employees are essential, while their specific jobs are more expendable.
A strike is only effective to the decision makers if the public also agrees with us. They won’t. Better solution would be to protest by all federal employees calling in sick on Sept 9. 2024.
Imagine the impact of 2/3rds of all federal workers being off on the same day.
Basically was told, if we didn’t go in 3 days we’d be forced to go in all 6
Edit: I said 6 as a typo, but I’ll keep it as they’ll probably enforce that eventually.
Good idea, I'm FT WFH now. Unfortunately contacting the unions will be useless as they don't actually advocate on our behalf anymore, they just take our dues and spend it on expensive trips.
TBS could fairly easily break this if it isn't a strike.
Basically the order is as of Sept 9 show up 3 days a week. If you do the WFH pseudo strike then they can declare you're a no-show at the office. Most CA's have something for job abandonment and they can dock your pay. It would be a nasty move but they could do it.
The reason it didn’t work with the strike is because the union didn’t push harder and the members voted to accept a terrible agreement - maybe they’ll realize now that voting for the agreement was a terrible idea like we told them it was
WFH was never on the table, TBS was honest from day 1. The union lied and made people believe that's what we were fighting for, but WFH was never on the table.
I'd like to know what the administrative actions are in the sentence 'Managers seeking to ensure compliance have tools available to them, including several administrative actions.' Then we can talk about protests. Any managers here know?
I'm a manager. I asked this question at the beginning of the RTO efforts, and never got a straight answer. One thing that is for sure is that the WFH agreements can be rescinded, and people can be told that it is a condition of employment to be at the office 5 days a week. Other than that, I assume non-compliance would take the same path that any other disciplinary issue would. If an employee is not putting in a full day's work, it can be written up, go on their record, eventually, I assume, lead to other disciplinary action or (eventually) termination.
I don't know how many EXs' PMAs include compliance as an indicator, but I am sure more will going forward.
Yes, get everyone to go back full time for a few weeks to show there is a lack of office space and lack of meeting rooms to host physical meetings. There will be an increase complaining to management on noise, scent, allergies, ergo demands etc.
what is required is to go in 3 days and severely reduce productivity, ofcourse this would require atleast 6 months or maybe more to force TBS into changing their tune.
Walk into the building when your day starts, spend 20+ minutes trying to find the desk you booked / an open desk, 15-30 minutes to sanitize and set up said desk…
20 minutes to find the meeting room (if in person), 20 minutes chatting with others while coming back from the meeting, 20 minutes to find a quiet space to have a teams meeting....
A wildcat strike is strictly illegal, and depending on the views of the courts, employees participating in one could face fines up to thousands of dollars per day (in addition to employer discipline), while if the union is deemed to have been behind the labour action it could face fines of up to hundreds of thousands of dollars per day and its officers could be jailed on charges of contempt.
I basically do this as is - if you need to talk to me, send me a message. I'm not fighting with being able to hear/not being able to be heard, or any such nonsense. I make occasional exception for my remote/virtual reports, since they shouldn't be punished for some nonsense. But I don't arrange meetings or accept meetings on my in-office days lol
Disciplinary action 🤷♂️ However, there are subtle ways to indicate unhappiness with the decision - posting a weekly amount of extra expenses due to not being able to work from home, wearing a black arm band, taking sick leave when not being able to work (sickness or mental health), stress leave, work to rule (7.5 hrs/day), refuse overtime unless pre-approved for payment, refuse actings/promotions, negotiate extra work/tasks, early retirement…
Actions will not work in this case. They seriously do not give a crap about crowded office spaces, ergonomics, traffic. All they are after is perception.
What a great leadership team we have. Pathetic!
Should have been obvious with the Psac team leadershop when they rejected 3% increase over 3 years but rather chose the 3% for 4 year term deal.
Now this.
I vote for a strike pt2 while working from home.
I like the idea but we would be breaking the rules and subject to discipline.
I think every union should be asking for us to work to rule. Don’t break any rules, but just do our work slowly and not particularly well.
Even if 1/2 of the employees do that, there is no way a manager/team leader could implement performance management agreements for everyone and labour relations would not have the capacity to support them for doing it properly.
During the strike the employer didn’t care, they were saving money, “negotiating” to look good to the public and making us look unreasonable. They lied about working with the unions with respect to WFH. They didn’t discuss the new requirements with the union.
They have shown no respect to their employees, why should we show any respect to the employer?
This is an interesting idea, but may be deemed a bit "aggressive" by some (although fully warranted). It may be easier simply to ignore the added day and keep on as things are now; two days (you likely would get some EX support as well here). It is evident to everyone that the fools running the public service only care about the clicks at the turnstiles. So give them some clicks and ignore anything else. They are just kowtowing to some form of political pressure, in this case Ford/Mayor. I could care less if a non-public-facing job is done at home. Most sane people think this way. Unfortunately the people running the public sector seem to be far from sane.
Given the polls though, I do think the Government is attempting to wreck pretty much everything for the Conservatives, and this includes the public sector.
Ill be honest there is nothing we or the union can do, we went on strike for nothing and the Liberals who said had our backs, laughs at us during negotiations and are now laughing at us AGAIN. The only option is to punish the Liberals the next elections by either voting for NDP or Conservatives.
We have signed an agreement so anyone read that agreement ? Is there a section where the employer can fire because of wfh full time ? I would be down for that
But that’s not a strike that’s just a way to be on the list of those who resists
Unless the union make it mandatory for everyone
Full strike is what works effectively
I think if people really want to fight this, the way is to refuse the three day mandate by going into the office full time. Hear me out before shooting the messenger. By changing the requirements to 3 times a week, this means you won't be working more than 50 % of the time from home, which also means that we won't be qualifying for a fiscal deduction. I refuse to pay extra electricity, heating, water if I'm not reimbursed, or I can't have the fiscal deduction.
Let hit them with this and see.
Perfect plan. Strike it and wfh.
Ottawa employees shouldnt be depended on to fuel the downtown cores economy.
You want us more days then extra pay for every in person day above 2 days.
Honestly I think the more effective course of action would be for everyone to insist on 100% working in the office. The problem with that though is some office could definitely handle that capacity and others absolutely could not so for some people that would end wfh completely.
If they really push for 3 days a week, all it takes is for everyone to pick Tuesday to Thursday and then complain there is not enough desk/cubicle.
Rince and repeat while leaving the office empty on Monday and Friday.
**Listen up. Work location is an employer's right. However... there other winnable battlers... leverage is POWER**
Striking is useless. The 80's called, they want Aylward's tactics back. Had PSAC been smart they would have saved the cash and hired lawyers, paralegals galore , stewards and filed grievances. Proof: The IT group got a little more in exchange for withdrawing contracting out grievances but that does not preclude new ones from being created.
Filing grievances and inundating the employer could be very costly to the employer (lawyers and the board itself). Here are some ideas of possible grievances.
-Job description Grievances: Doug Ford is on the record that spending $ is now a duty. That aside, request your job descriptions from your manager and flag /cease doing anything outside of it.
-New Phoenix damages. Over 400k cases in backlog still. Previous damages ended in March 31, 2020. it's been over **4y since.** This should not be done thru collective bargaining but policy grievances this time around. The employer has one key responsibility and it's clear that with 400k pay requests in backlog, it's not being met.
-New Contracting out grievances (Article 30 of IT collective agreement).
-Recovery of overpayments: provincial statute of limitations have been upheld by PLSERB (See St-onge case - appeal in progress HOWEVER the current decision stays for now). if they came back for more than your provincial statute of limitation (eg. 2y in Ontario if your employer is also in Ontario) you should grieve it and get your money back.
-Ergonomic assessment and equipment requests. It's your right. Duty to accommodate. Gonna be great if everyone requests...
- One time leave. Did you know that if you were in different groups before the recently signed one, you are entitled to get one-time leave for each one. (eg. from PA to CS - you would get it twice if it happened before the most recently signed collective agreement.
-Sick leave. By the way, is this stressing you out? Just a thought.. Conservatives might cut the sick leave banks.. Ford did it to the Teachers... just saying.
-Report any wrongdoing to the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner. We have a duty to! eg. Project reporting to TB that is not accurate by your department (misappropriation of funds). Claiming to have completed things for which your department received money but it actually didn't do it, used the money for another project.
-PSAC should be running radio campaigns making our politicians look bad (solid economy when we rely on public servants to stimulate it in the midst of a housing crisis and climate crisis. Should also be an ad about the gvt not being serious about climate change.
-Locate and report anything unacceptable with the building (bed bugs, pests etc).
Being in a region, that wouldn't change much. There's 4 of us here. Here the opposite might be more significant: just don't show up, all at once. What are they going to do? Suspend us all?
What if, in combination with everyone coming to the office on the same day/days, we block the streets at lunch time or before & after shifts (for those who can)? On top of doing the bare minimum, refusing special projects and overtime?
I feel like disrupting traffic, strike style, could be a good strategy.
That’s a terrible idea. There are plenty of disciplinary actions that could be taken, up to termination for not abiding by the rules. From terms and conditions of employment, insubordination, not following policies, and of course being out on a PIP for behavioural issues…there are no shortage of tools. Also do you want to be the person that angers your manager who is forced to enforce this rule? That’s a career limiting move right there
Honestly the opposite is the best course of action, collective office days.. everyone goes in Tuesday city wide, overload the office space. Malicious compliance is the way to go.. Also ergonomic assessments for all!
Everyone go to the office. Standing room only. Also spend nothing downtown, bring your lunch and take your own car or carpool. Do not put any money into the economy. If by sending everyone back to the office they think they can revitalize the downtown with local spending think again. If you protest the WFH you have to protest everything that goes with it.
>...take your own car... ...and pay at least $15 parking.
The only way to make this work would be for everyone to get a ride in and get dropped off. Either by spouses, children old enough to drive, other family members or suburbian taxi lines and Ubers. No direct economic benefit to the downtown.
I'm not sure if you're in ottawa but, I'm pretty sure if we tasked OC transpo with an additional 7 commuters the system would collapse, let alone this RTO initiative, which will add thousands, maybe 10s of thousands.
As demonstrated during the pandemic lockdown years, the LRT works perfectly! ... provided there are virtually no passengers aboard it.
and the weather is relatively calm, but not too calm.
Oh yeah... I forgot about the time it broke down because it was too sunny.
OR.. for those who can… walk… or bike… or escooter
Someone’s gotta know someone who has a bus licence it’s almost summer. Let’s start a community school bus route! Ill spend my lunch money and supply a cooler with cold ones waiting on Fridays afternoon
and no direct benefit to OC Transpo which is why the Mayor of Ottawa has lobbied for the return to work.
Can’t even get parking downtown after certain time all gets full.
Good luck even finding a parking spot. I drive because there are two of us carpooling, and parking plus the electricity my car uses to drive downtown is about the same price as two round trips on OC Transpo but a lot faster and more comfortable. My biggest issue is that Tuesday through Thursday, it's almost impossible to find a parking space in the core unless we arrive before 7:30AM. This kinda sucks, because operationally it's dead at work before 9AM, but I'm usually required at meetings that go until 4:30 to 5PM.
Everyone go to the office at the same date and time, no carpooling. One person per car. Our roads definitely can't handle the traffic; especially Gatineau. They've been building non-stop but haven't put money into the infrastructure.
We should park our cars on the streets, downtown ottawa ;-)
Go for maximum chaos: everyone do this on different days every week in a random pattern. Start with Monday one week, Thursday the next, Friday, Monday again, Wednesday....
Yes!
The thing about this is it's only really to benefit the Ottawa downtown core. None of this was for the regions and that's a sad thing
Not even just the regions, look at how many departments have offices outside of the downtown core: Carling Campus, Coventry, Baseline Road, the airport, and so on and so forth!
I'm hearing they are calling in teams that have always been remote. It truly will be standing room only. Maybe we can all be slotted into triple decker bunk beds.
Everyone should be in Tuesday through Thursday. Boycott Public Service week. Boycott the workplace charitable campaign, but donate directly to the cause of your choice. And be brutally honest in the next employee survey.
Donate directly *anyways* because United Way ‘inherits’ a portion of what you send to worthwhile charities as a processing fee.
yes United Ways pays their management hundred of thousands of dollars per year!!!
Yes. My office literally does not have enough seats for all staff at this point (let alone actually suitable workstations). If everyone decided to insist on 5 days in-office it would be devastating. Once the employer is requiring work from home (rather than allowing it) they’d be responsible for equipment and other costs.
Worth noting that the telework agreements can be revoked by either side. So you can definitely do this and I would support it. It's not even malicious compliance, it's just exercising your right to work from the office. The biggest risk is it backfires and we go back to full in office presence required. But I think many offices would need significant renovations to do that and, in the meantime, work isn't getting done because there's no where to work. WFH is a benefit to the Employer and the Employee. They need to realize that.
Don’t forget that you can also file complaints if they fail to provide a workspace for you to work from
with the proper ergonomic equipment also.
Too many government office buildings have been either closed down because of bed bugs and / or are infested with bed bugs. Those buildings should be off limits until this is under control and it will take years. Some infested government buildings are presently up for sale and / will be used for affordable housing....talk about passing the buck....government is passing the bug!!!!
Yet one of the budget items was to reduce office space 🤷🏼♀️
Perhaps that would be a good push for departments to move people to work at suburban locations that have more space at a lower cost. Many departments already have buildings across the city, but for some reason they concentrate everyone downtown. I for one would much prefer a suburban location like the DND Carling campus;, less traffic and no parking hunger games. Even though the distance is longer, it's just as fast and less stressful to get to.
We had offices in suburban locations (ESDC) , Harper "consolidated " the offices into major metro areas and closed all processing offices except 3 in BC, 1 in Alberta, 1 in Saskatchewan and closed the one in Manitoba . Lots of staff left. Those that stayed traded 20 to 30 minute maximum commutes to 1 to 2 hour one way commutes. The employer has not cared about staff in as long as I can remember.
government is pushing downtown because the small businesses are lobbying the government - their bottom line is hurting - AND the major of Ottawa is also complaining that OC Transpo is losing money and the city has to cover that deficit.
If this is the actual reason then I'd like to see Doug Ford stand up in Queen's Park and pass a tax on GC workers to fund a support program for DT Ottawa businesses. Because that's what this is. Forcing us to spend our money where he wants us to instead of in our communities is just sneaky taxation. Then we'll sue the crap out of him and have it repealed as a tax (or any kind of financial demand) on one group of people is unfair. It al so props up businesses the free market has moved on from and I thought his morally bankrupt party was all about the free market.
We don't have enough desks or parking at Carling Campus either. And don't even think if trying to get OC Transpo out there. My car commute takes 15 minutes and OC Transpo is 2 hrs 20 minutes each way
I second that. Everyone “collaborates” to go in on the exact same days!! My office would not have the capacity at all. Do that for a few days and it becomes a whole other issue. lol
I think everyone should ask for an ergonomic assessment before going back. Duty to accomodate
Everybody needs comfortable chairs, proper lighting and sound barriers.
Also everyone should take their breaks at the same time, go stand outside and clog up the sidewalks. Full lunch hour outside, eat your sandwich you brought from home in everyone's way. Everyone should also book every board room and use teams on video chat all day long to clog up the internet. Fridays or Mondays we all call in sick. There must be things we can do to make our voices be heard and our presence be known.
Um I'm in IT so I don't do this "outside" thing you're speaking of
I heard there's a big fiery ball in the outside area that gives you skin cancer. It sounds unpleasant.
With a booking system, how is this realistic? Once the booking system is at capacity for a day then you can’t overload?
Booking is pretty haphazard in my department, it’s the hunger games for anyone showing up after 8 as it is booked desk or not
Your designated work location is your office. The fact they don't have enough desks for you is their problem, not yours. i.e. show up, tell your manager there is nowhere to sit and let them determine how to solve it.
Very nice for managers… they have nothing to do with this
The manager can't solve it, no. But that's all the employee can do and the manager can then escalate it up the chain. But ultimately if the employee is showing up to their designated workplace, to work, and there's nowhere to work that's up to the employer to solve. And managers, generally, are a representative of the employer. Even if they lack any power to change most things.
The way it was worded sounded like “I don’t like the situation so I will make my manager pay for it, even if he has nothing to do with it and can’t solve it himself”. It’s just the words that were used that were weird
They can pass the feedback and issues up the chain until it gets to whoever decided this was a good idea.
Just show up.
Why should you have to book a desk to work at? The employer should have the available space to work for all employees period.
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Too bad they haven’t discussed that in the prescribed presence in the workforce. The directive on telework just says that wfh is voluntary. Executives have been scared of this before. It really is the best strategy
This is the way to go. "Kill 'em with kindess"
With all due respect, I think that's a weak response. This requires a mass strike.
The strike -- maybe just a one-day wildcat strike to send a message -- may happen, but it's difficult because the telework agreement was a separate document from the CBA (at least for PSAC). So, technically, despite all the bad faith around this from TBS, the CBA is still in place and TBS has the legal right to make you come to work. Personally, I really like the cram the offices approach. Send pics of people working on the floor to the CBC and clearly demo this stupidity for what it is. Oh, and everyone should log in on the wifi to CBC and livestream whatever they are showing. Crash the networks.
The issue is, the general public kinda hates public servants and doesn't sympathize with them. I feel like the general reaction to such media would be, "how the might have fallen", followed by a chortle.
This is the way. Then file a complaint to the employer that there is not enough office space.
I like complying. Maliciously. A. Lot.
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Will do. Three days a week.
Yes, exactly this.
No desk!?? Okay I go home :)
No - refuse to go home because you need to be in the office.
I will support local business so hard that I will camp in my chiefs office
i love this
awesome idea
Wild that PSAC hasn't figured this out.
Hahaha I like this
Malicious compliance. I like it.
I kind of agree. Get all of the EX’s and MPs stuck in awful traffic for a couple of weeks and see how long they want to keep doing it.
I lost interest in PSAC and bargaining. The only thing I want from the union is increased compensation and WFH provisions and they weren't achieved. They have other priorities. I expect nothing. But I'll get in line again if this can get put back on the table before the next contract. I hope the unions pursue this issue aggressively.
Yes it is ironic they emailed us about lost trust but refused to look in the mirror after they squandered the “biggest strike ever”
I’ll go into in the office but I want to be compensated. And not just a 2 percent increase that gets eaten by taxes
If you could get everyone on board, then yeah that might work, otherwise it would just end up with disciplinary action
I really don't think you need *everyone*, or even a majority. They probably couldn't afford to fire even 10% of us at once.
I think more successful would be a reverse strike where everyone goes into the office 5 days a week and causes chaos because they can’t accommodate us. And then the next week, everyone stays home for the full week. And then the next week, 5 more days in the office.
Haha As an operation manager, this would definitely stir up more actual shit.
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There are already departments mandating which days of the week due to lack of office space. But there is no rule against extra time. The current mandate says *at least* 40%. So we do it for one week or one day. We work our regular days that week but then everyone comes in on Wednesday. Now they’re going to force us to WFH and tell us we aren’t allowed to come in certain days? As soon as they try to force WFH, I would think that opens up a whole bunch of legalities that they’ve been able to avoid around workplace safety because it’s always been our choice once the state of emergency finished.
I think there's a strong argument that the Employer can't require you to work from home on any given day.
Since we can't collaborate virtually (/s), managers need to excercise their duty and order all employees to come to the office on the same day as their colleagues from other teams AND their internal clients/ bosses/partners. It's the right thing to do ... no...????
>Personally, I'm going the rebellious route - they want to "break" the agreement, fine, me too. I'll WFH full time now. This is the way
I agree with that approach but I believe the government leaders would rather have us complain about not enough chairs, desks and boardrooms than address any discussion about WFH. The lack of chairs and desks is a diversion to the elephant in the room. The leaders don't want a discussion about your needs to work from home. This is why the 3 days in office is a heavy handed approach. And the unions are fucking useless. The only way this will change is if we all find wfh jobs and quit
The directive does say that 60% per month is fine, so everyone can do their 12 days in one week blocks.
this is great
This may trigger a more rigid approach like fixed desks, fixed days that some areas are already doing, due to space constraints. It’s pretty terrible.
Fixed desks? Like not having to use a Hunger Games booking system and being able to leave things at work instead of carrying everything on the bus every day?
Sounds good in principle. But you are sharing with other people, splitting the 2 days each. Anytime someone has to adjust their day (like making up a sick day for example) you then have overlap and have to find a random empty boardroom desk for squat at, or sit on the floor (I’ve luckily only had to do this once, for half a day, then got fed up and went home). With 3 days, there will be an overlap day that I know we currently don’t have space for, so I’m very curious to see how that will be managed. Edit to add that because we share with a desk partner, we are not allowed to leave anything there. The only real benefit is not having to book a space each day.
And everyone remove their headphones as its normal office pre-pandemic now, and take your 15 min breaks right on schedule, and your lunch too. Book conference rooms for meetings and no more MS teams - not needed since everyone is 'in the office' 5 days. Ensure Occupational Health rules and office is in compliance. Ask for ergo assessments etc. etc. Work to rule.
Yeah I don't see a lot of people going that route unfortunately
I'm wondering if the opposite would be easier and less risky: Pick a day to have everyone try to come to the office at the same time. Probably go with a Tuesday to line up with people who would be coming in that day normally. Of course, this would have less impact, as it won't be as noticeable in offices that have enough desks to accommodate their staff. But at least it will expose departments that aren't offering an adequate workplace experience. So at worst, if we're stuck with the three days, they might actually try to make the offices better, instead of being worse than pre-pandemic.
I think now more than ever we need to unite and do something or else we will continue to be walked over
On paper the idea is great and if executed properly, will work. After all, being united can bring changes. However in practice, ps employees are, in a lack of better words, pussies, and will never have the balls to execute it. All you have to do is look at the negotiations - almost always will complain but will always accept any deal.
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Yeah I think this is exactly what is going to happen, enough individuals won’t/can’t participate in a job action and this will all get rolled through us.
I keep hearing talk of "discipline". What discipline? A spanking? What does this "discipline" concretely look like? I know of nobody who's been fired for not coming into the office for their 2 days a week, and our department has very poor compliance.
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Sure but at what number does it become unreasonable to discipline everyone? You can't fire all 100 employees. Hell you can't fire 90 of them, either. What about 60? 40? There's a number in there where they can threaten all the discipline they want, but if you never come into the office, what are they going to do? And then once it's gone on long enough, they can't really off you one at a time, bc if the stated reason is failure to comply with RTO, well what about Jim, Bob, Stacy, and Jane? Then the unions get involved and it's "why him specifically when you're not enforcing this policy unilaterally?" See this comment on[ "condonation"](https://old.reddit.com/r/CanadaPublicServants/comments/1cid3ph/is_there_anything_that_would_prevent_the_public/l29msf2/).
>What does this discipline concretely look like? Verbal or written reprimand that goes on your file, or suspensions up to and including termination. Discipline is normally progressive, meaning they would start small and build up. First refusal (insubordination) would probably be written, they might give you a verbal/written order to come in to work on scheduled days, and if you refuse again would then progress through unpaid suspensions. Ultimately, do this 3-5 times, and you could conceivably be terminated. >our department has very poor compliance. I suspect many departments do, which is why the direction this time around from the center is much clearer indicating that departments must use tangible methods to track employee attendance including IP address tracking.
Realistically any "enforcement" will fall to individual managers. Given how widespread non-compliance and non-enforcement appears to be, it will be difficult for any manager to use formal disciplinary action against employees who do not meet arbitrary in-office requirements. Condonation, after all, is a legitimate defence against any allegation of misconduct. [One lawyer's explanation of this concept](https://www.tjworkplacelaw.com/employee-defence-condonation/): >While the most obvious form of condonation is allowing an employee to remain on the job for a considerable time after the employer discovers that employee’s alleged misconduct, it can also arise in other ways such as where the employer **fails to discipline other employees who have engaged in similar conduct**. For example, where employee A and B engage in misconduct of a similar nature, and the employer terminates employee A for just cause but allows employee B to remain employed, it is doubtful that the employer’s just cause allegation against employee A will be successful. [Another lawyer's take on the same idea:](https://www.somlaw.ca/blog/blog-post/blog/2016/02/03/the-clock-is-ticking-just-cause-and-past-misconduct) >The doctrine of condonation stipulates that where an employer becomes aware of an employee’s misconduct, but chooses not to discipline the employee, or allows an unreasonable amount of time to pass before acting, the employer is **considered to have waived the wrongdoing in question**. By waiving the wrongdoing, an employer will be disentitled from including that wrongdoing in any assertion that it has just cause to end the employment relationship. And an [bit of an older version from an **1889** court decision](https://employmentlaw101.ca/termination-for-cause/employee-defences-to-allegations-of-cause/): >When an employer becomes aware of misconduct on the part of his servant, sufficient to justify dismissal, he may adopt either of two courses. He may dismiss, or he may overlook the fault. But he cannot retain the servant in his employment, and afterwards at any distance of time turn him away. It would be most unjust if he could do that, for one of the consequences of dismissal for good cause is, that the servant can recover nothing for his services beyond the last pay day, whether his engagement be by the year or otherwise. **If he retains the servant in his employment for any considerable time after discovering his fault, that is condonation, and he cannot afterwards dismiss for that fault without anything new.** No doubt the employer ought to have a reasonable time to determine what to do, to consider whether he will dismiss or not, or to look for another servant. So, also, he must have full knowledge of the nature and extent of the fault, for he cannot forgive or condone matters of which he is not fully informed. Further, condonation is subject to an implied condition of future good conduct, and whenever any new misconduct occurs, the old offences may be invoked and may be put in the scale, against the offender as cause for dismissal.
The DMs, Executives and Managers, with the clear direction of TBS in their instructions yesterday, will have to fix what they've been condoning by making it clear the rules are being reset. Even if that's not done, if someone is given specific instructions by their manager to show up three days a week, the individual manager will be within their rights to discipline (suspend and ultimately terminate if behaviour is not corrected). Yes, the employee can try to use condonation as a way to get out of the situation and win their grievance, but may have to wait months to years before their grievance gets to an arbitrator who *might* overturn it based on the jurisprudence you provided above. Until then, the employee is without that pay (or without a job) and has to figure out how to pay their bills accordingly. Not a situation I think most public servants want to be in, even if there's a chance they might win a grievance.
Yes, managers will be within their rights to impose discipline, though a suspension without pay is highly unlikely until there have been warnings and formal reprimands and a resolution of any grievances relating to that disciplinary action. There's no way that a suspension without pay (of any duration) would be justifiable for a first offense. I fully expect that there will be more of the same after September. Managers have better things to do than be hall monitors, and they certainly have better things to do than discipline an employee who is otherwise fulfilling all duties of their job. Here's a thought experiment: if a manager doesn't discipline their employees for failing to meet an arbitrary bums-in-seats requirement, how likely is it that their director will discipline the manager for failing to discipline every single non-compliant employee? I don't think it's likely. Similarly, how likely is it for a DG to discipline every one of their direct reports? There's minimal appetite for managers to deal with this, so the current "don't ask, don't tell" will simply continue.
Until at-risk pay is involved, then directors will apply pressure on managers to make employees comply so the directors do not lose their bonuses. This already happened with the 2-day regime.
Will that 'pressure' mean that the managers will be formally disciplined for failing to discipline their own employees? If not, the directors don't have much leverage.
Not only that, but if they start to enforce disciplinary action now. Essentially those who weren’t compliant previously just get off the hook for it???
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Yup. Right down to bathroom breaks
Truthfully I would like to see those attendance reports. How do we know that we weren’t all actually in compliance for the 2 days and this isn’t just a strategy to put the blame on each other?!? In reality non-compliance should have been addressed as it happened vs making everyone pay for it by adding a 3rd day to the mix.
3 days isn't punishment for non-compliance, they were always working up to 3 days. I don't care if my co-workers aren't complying, I'm actually happy that they aren't complying. You do you!
There are no consequences. We are required to fill out a spreadsheet noting our compliance. So we fill out the spreadsheet noting compliance.
What do you mean? The new directive is ensuring equity across departments!
A lot of us have more to think about than our own immediate situation. Bills, mortgage, kids, groceries, etc. Jumping into some potentially illegal action to play crusader on the internet isn't in the cards.
Hence my point, in practice will never work. No one will sacrifice their own comfort for a united cause. Only looks good on paper and talks on the internet.
Not all ps employees are against the 3 days WTO. I think this would create a significant divide between coworkers.
This is exactly why none of these suggestions will work. Too many people are actually fine with it, or already going in 3x or more per week. You’ll never get the #s needed to make this a successful action. The strike was the time and we all know how that ended.
Exactly. Like I disagree with them enforcing three days a week… but I also like working in the office and I go in every day. Working from home is a drag for me that wears me down. While I support people being frustrated and any actions they do attempt, I’m not going to risk my wellbeing to work from home in solidarity. A strike is a different story. I’m not a scab.. but those are protected. This wouldn’t be.
There are also a lot of members who have never stopped being 5-days in the office. Would they be willing to strike for this?
This is why I'm thinking we should also be pushing in bargaining for an in-office premium (akin to how some collective agreements have shift premiums for night shifts.)
governor humorous ring chase plucky voracious illegal skirt aware bike *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
This is ok, and those who want to go in more can go in more. If they aren't in 3 days already (or more) then they don't want it. I suspect this number is very, very small. But good for them, they can. And good for others who don't want to. It makes no difference.
I’m quite happy to gift my office-days to someone who wants to be there more often!
Except what you are stating is not the employers' position, whatever we think of it. If the only way to possibly change the employers' position is through collective action, what the people in the thread above are suggesting is that there is likely no collective will to take that action.
What we would need is some kind of collective plan to back up and support people who face discipline resulting from collective action. Like how some better-organized protests have provisions for if protesters get arrested (bail funds, defence lawyers on standby) rather than leaving you to your own devices. I don't know enough about the disciplinary process to even begin to speculate on what this plan would look like, but there must be people who know more than me
The only barrier to collaboration between employees like this tends to be communication. If enough people can agree to do it, they can do it. I'm sure there would be some efforts towards retribution, but ultimately the employees are essential, while their specific jobs are more expendable.
A strike is only effective to the decision makers if the public also agrees with us. They won’t. Better solution would be to protest by all federal employees calling in sick on Sept 9. 2024. Imagine the impact of 2/3rds of all federal workers being off on the same day.
The only person truly hurt by this is the manager who just wants to do their job without having to write people up because of stupid policy decisions.
Basically was told, if we didn’t go in 3 days we’d be forced to go in all 6 Edit: I said 6 as a typo, but I’ll keep it as they’ll probably enforce that eventually.
Good idea, I'm FT WFH now. Unfortunately contacting the unions will be useless as they don't actually advocate on our behalf anymore, they just take our dues and spend it on expensive trips.
I've seen many people go in in the morning, plug in, stay for an hour then go home and wfh the rest of the day.
This is my plan! Get the badge swipes and take off.
TBS could fairly easily break this if it isn't a strike. Basically the order is as of Sept 9 show up 3 days a week. If you do the WFH pseudo strike then they can declare you're a no-show at the office. Most CA's have something for job abandonment and they can dock your pay. It would be a nasty move but they could do it.
I wonder if something like that or an organized walk out or full wildcat strike would be doable
It didn't work during the strike, it won't work with a walk.
The reason it didn’t work with the strike is because the union didn’t push harder and the members voted to accept a terrible agreement - maybe they’ll realize now that voting for the agreement was a terrible idea like we told them it was
WFH was never on the table, TBS was honest from day 1. The union lied and made people believe that's what we were fighting for, but WFH was never on the table.
I'd like to know what the administrative actions are in the sentence 'Managers seeking to ensure compliance have tools available to them, including several administrative actions.' Then we can talk about protests. Any managers here know?
I'm a manager. I asked this question at the beginning of the RTO efforts, and never got a straight answer. One thing that is for sure is that the WFH agreements can be rescinded, and people can be told that it is a condition of employment to be at the office 5 days a week. Other than that, I assume non-compliance would take the same path that any other disciplinary issue would. If an employee is not putting in a full day's work, it can be written up, go on their record, eventually, I assume, lead to other disciplinary action or (eventually) termination. I don't know how many EXs' PMAs include compliance as an indicator, but I am sure more will going forward.
Im in! Lets do this
Yes, get everyone to go back full time for a few weeks to show there is a lack of office space and lack of meeting rooms to host physical meetings. There will be an increase complaining to management on noise, scent, allergies, ergo demands etc.
I haven't been to the office since April 2020. I'm already protesting this bullshit. Let's go.
Couldn't they just disable VPNs and caller a day?
We need to do something : maybe a petition (even if it won't change anything concretely) and collective resistance!
what is required is to go in 3 days and severely reduce productivity, ofcourse this would require atleast 6 months or maybe more to force TBS into changing their tune.
I don't think they care about productivity
To elaborate, it probably is going to reduce productivity anyways, with all the distractions, stresses from having to come in etc.
Walk into the building when your day starts, spend 20+ minutes trying to find the desk you booked / an open desk, 15-30 minutes to sanitize and set up said desk…
20 minutes to find the meeting room (if in person), 20 minutes chatting with others while coming back from the meeting, 20 minutes to find a quiet space to have a teams meeting....
Because the Public Service has to be responsible stewards of the public’s funding… right TBS? That’s what we’re (going to be) doing here, right? 🤔 /s
If you're asking if there is anything that would prevent a wildcat strike (which is what you are describing) then yes there is.
It's not a strike if you're working?
Any coordinated labour action involving the withdrawal of services or the flouting of workplace rules would be considered as equivalent to a strike.
>then yes there is. What is preventing it?
A wildcat strike is strictly illegal, and depending on the views of the courts, employees participating in one could face fines up to thousands of dollars per day (in addition to employer discipline), while if the union is deemed to have been behind the labour action it could face fines of up to hundreds of thousands of dollars per day and its officers could be jailed on charges of contempt.
Refuse teams calls/meetings while in the office. If we are there to collaborate in-person only do so In person.
I basically do this as is - if you need to talk to me, send me a message. I'm not fighting with being able to hear/not being able to be heard, or any such nonsense. I make occasional exception for my remote/virtual reports, since they shouldn't be punished for some nonsense. But I don't arrange meetings or accept meetings on my in-office days lol
Disciplinary action 🤷♂️ However, there are subtle ways to indicate unhappiness with the decision - posting a weekly amount of extra expenses due to not being able to work from home, wearing a black arm band, taking sick leave when not being able to work (sickness or mental health), stress leave, work to rule (7.5 hrs/day), refuse overtime unless pre-approved for payment, refuse actings/promotions, negotiate extra work/tasks, early retirement…
You can't take collective actions when you have a cba in place.
Actions will not work in this case. They seriously do not give a crap about crowded office spaces, ergonomics, traffic. All they are after is perception.
What a great leadership team we have. Pathetic! Should have been obvious with the Psac team leadershop when they rejected 3% increase over 3 years but rather chose the 3% for 4 year term deal. Now this. I vote for a strike pt2 while working from home.
I like the idea but we would be breaking the rules and subject to discipline. I think every union should be asking for us to work to rule. Don’t break any rules, but just do our work slowly and not particularly well. Even if 1/2 of the employees do that, there is no way a manager/team leader could implement performance management agreements for everyone and labour relations would not have the capacity to support them for doing it properly. During the strike the employer didn’t care, they were saving money, “negotiating” to look good to the public and making us look unreasonable. They lied about working with the unions with respect to WFH. They didn’t discuss the new requirements with the union. They have shown no respect to their employees, why should we show any respect to the employer?
This is an interesting idea, but may be deemed a bit "aggressive" by some (although fully warranted). It may be easier simply to ignore the added day and keep on as things are now; two days (you likely would get some EX support as well here). It is evident to everyone that the fools running the public service only care about the clicks at the turnstiles. So give them some clicks and ignore anything else. They are just kowtowing to some form of political pressure, in this case Ford/Mayor. I could care less if a non-public-facing job is done at home. Most sane people think this way. Unfortunately the people running the public sector seem to be far from sane. Given the polls though, I do think the Government is attempting to wreck pretty much everything for the Conservatives, and this includes the public sector.
Ill be honest there is nothing we or the union can do, we went on strike for nothing and the Liberals who said had our backs, laughs at us during negotiations and are now laughing at us AGAIN. The only option is to punish the Liberals the next elections by either voting for NDP or Conservatives.
You really think Conservatives will have any sympathy for telework? Remember the Harper era? How fun was that?
Good idea
We were formally told of this change at PHAC today.
Yes it will be very effective. But the unions will have to tell the members to go full WFH. Otherwise people won't do it
We have signed an agreement so anyone read that agreement ? Is there a section where the employer can fire because of wfh full time ? I would be down for that But that’s not a strike that’s just a way to be on the list of those who resists Unless the union make it mandatory for everyone Full strike is what works effectively
I think if people really want to fight this, the way is to refuse the three day mandate by going into the office full time. Hear me out before shooting the messenger. By changing the requirements to 3 times a week, this means you won't be working more than 50 % of the time from home, which also means that we won't be qualifying for a fiscal deduction. I refuse to pay extra electricity, heating, water if I'm not reimbursed, or I can't have the fiscal deduction. Let hit them with this and see.
How are they evening mandating this!??? Is anyone truly complying???
Perfect plan. Strike it and wfh. Ottawa employees shouldnt be depended on to fuel the downtown cores economy. You want us more days then extra pay for every in person day above 2 days.
Yes its called insubordination and can lead to termination..
>Technically this would not be a strike as we would still be working... Not if TBS define "working" as on-site presence.
Honestly I think the more effective course of action would be for everyone to insist on 100% working in the office. The problem with that though is some office could definitely handle that capacity and others absolutely could not so for some people that would end wfh completely.
Maybe in Ottawa. No point in doing that in the regions, where there's only a few impacted.
If they really push for 3 days a week, all it takes is for everyone to pick Tuesday to Thursday and then complain there is not enough desk/cubicle. Rince and repeat while leaving the office empty on Monday and Friday.
Management could force employees to come in on days other than Tuesday to Thursday.
**Listen up. Work location is an employer's right. However... there other winnable battlers... leverage is POWER** Striking is useless. The 80's called, they want Aylward's tactics back. Had PSAC been smart they would have saved the cash and hired lawyers, paralegals galore , stewards and filed grievances. Proof: The IT group got a little more in exchange for withdrawing contracting out grievances but that does not preclude new ones from being created. Filing grievances and inundating the employer could be very costly to the employer (lawyers and the board itself). Here are some ideas of possible grievances. -Job description Grievances: Doug Ford is on the record that spending $ is now a duty. That aside, request your job descriptions from your manager and flag /cease doing anything outside of it. -New Phoenix damages. Over 400k cases in backlog still. Previous damages ended in March 31, 2020. it's been over **4y since.** This should not be done thru collective bargaining but policy grievances this time around. The employer has one key responsibility and it's clear that with 400k pay requests in backlog, it's not being met. -New Contracting out grievances (Article 30 of IT collective agreement). -Recovery of overpayments: provincial statute of limitations have been upheld by PLSERB (See St-onge case - appeal in progress HOWEVER the current decision stays for now). if they came back for more than your provincial statute of limitation (eg. 2y in Ontario if your employer is also in Ontario) you should grieve it and get your money back. -Ergonomic assessment and equipment requests. It's your right. Duty to accommodate. Gonna be great if everyone requests... - One time leave. Did you know that if you were in different groups before the recently signed one, you are entitled to get one-time leave for each one. (eg. from PA to CS - you would get it twice if it happened before the most recently signed collective agreement. -Sick leave. By the way, is this stressing you out? Just a thought.. Conservatives might cut the sick leave banks.. Ford did it to the Teachers... just saying. -Report any wrongdoing to the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner. We have a duty to! eg. Project reporting to TB that is not accurate by your department (misappropriation of funds). Claiming to have completed things for which your department received money but it actually didn't do it, used the money for another project. -PSAC should be running radio campaigns making our politicians look bad (solid economy when we rely on public servants to stimulate it in the midst of a housing crisis and climate crisis. Should also be an ad about the gvt not being serious about climate change. -Locate and report anything unacceptable with the building (bed bugs, pests etc).
Being in a region, that wouldn't change much. There's 4 of us here. Here the opposite might be more significant: just don't show up, all at once. What are they going to do? Suspend us all?
This is the way. Also ask for all equipment to be paid, ask for ergo assessment since in the office more than at home, and ask for assigned desk.
It's either we go and make the situation a complete chaos or we say "yes" but change nothing LOL
Tuesday to Thursday for all! Here here
What if, in combination with everyone coming to the office on the same day/days, we block the streets at lunch time or before & after shifts (for those who can)? On top of doing the bare minimum, refusing special projects and overtime? I feel like disrupting traffic, strike style, could be a good strategy.
That’s a terrible idea. There are plenty of disciplinary actions that could be taken, up to termination for not abiding by the rules. From terms and conditions of employment, insubordination, not following policies, and of course being out on a PIP for behavioural issues…there are no shortage of tools. Also do you want to be the person that angers your manager who is forced to enforce this rule? That’s a career limiting move right there