Oppose the three-day in-office mandate

The Government of Canada has let us down yet again when they announced the recent amendments to the Direction on prescribed presence in the workplace calling for a mandatory three days a week back in the office starting September 9, 2024. While this mandate is aimed at public servants, Canadians shouldn’t turn their backs. With a lack of plan and evidence to support the change, a disingenuous approach to consultation with bargaining agents (BAs), and a growing track record of poor tax dollar spending, enough is enough.

#RemoteWorks for public servants

This mandate is the latest in a series of actions that have eroded trust between public servants and the federal government, impacting hundreds of thousands of public servants across Canada. In addition to forcing employees back to the office without a purposeful presence and without consultation despite formal agreements in place, the federal government has:

1. Failed to pay them properly for years due to Phoenix;
2. Provided inadequate health insurance and timely reimbursements for costly medical expenses via Canada Life;
3. Forced them back onto the roads and into crumbling office buildings with unsafe drinking water, pests, and countless other health and safety concerns; and
4. Doubled down on its 50% footprint reduction plan without any indication of how to accommodate the already overcrowded workspaces.

They have shown their complete inability to provide even the bare minimum for the hundreds of thousands of hard-working individuals who provide daily public services to Canadians. These conditions make it extremely difficult to attract the best and brightest to the federal public service and provide the best value for money for taxpayers.

#RemoteWorks for taxpayers

This political decision is placing the burden on public servants to revitalize the downtown core, rather than seeking sustainable solutions that benefit all.

The downsides of the mandate for taxpayers include:

• Poor public transit in combination with increased in-office days means increased commuter traffic and pollution, contradicting the government’s own mandate to reduce emissions.
• More in-office presence means hundreds of millions of dollars wasted on office buildings that could have been converted into affordable housing and social services.
• Public servants proved during the pandemic that they are just as productive from home, which is especially true now that distractions, inadequate equipment, health and safety concerns, and a lack of desk space plague public servants in the office.
• It prioritizes downtown businesses over local businesses in residential areas.
• Remote work not only provides more flexibility and work-life balance, attracting the best and brightest to work hard for your tax dollars, but it also gives a greater opportunity for Canadians across the country, especially in remote areas, to work for the federal government.

Following a scandal like ArriveCAN and the importance of investing in public servants, and as the union representing stewards of the public purse, we cannot sit back without sounding the alarm on how the now-majority of thousands of public servants’ time is being mishandled and your tax dollars wasted.

Taking action

To address this issue, we have already filed a policy grievance and unfair labour practice complaint seeking the following corrective actions:

1. A declaration that the employer has breached their obligations;
2. An order that ACFO must be meaningfully consulted on the implementation of a hybrid work model;
3. Rescinding the Directive on Prescribed Presence in the Workplace; and
4. Compensation for members for all harm experienced.

As we continue to advocate for a thoughtful and evidence-based approach to in-office work that respects the needs and rights of public servants and Canadians, we invite you to join us in the fight against this unjust mandate. Click here to learn more about what you can do.