Suggested questions to put to unions re: fighting in-office policies

I’ve learned that my former union’s Annual General Meeting is being held this Sunday, 17 November 2024, including by Zoom.

My emails to the union about fighting the federal government’s return-to-office policy have gone unanswered. Presumably it’s easy to ignore me since I’m not even a voting member anymore.

But I continue to worry. It does not seem that the approach unions are taking is helping employees. Week after week, I watch my loved ones pay the price in time and well-being (which are non-renewable resources).

It is not, in my considered opinion, an unreasonable request that unions be more daring here.

So, here are suggested questions that could be put to a union, say at an AGM. Hopefully this will make it easier for someone else to get answers and action.

1. Legal principles

The “in-office” policy was imposed unilaterally by the employer, “with no consultation with employees or their unions.” The union says research shows that working from home in fact increases productivity, and working conditions at home are often considerably better than what the employer requires employees to commute to. Therefore, this policy is not about productivity, technology, or health and safety.

1. Which party, legally speaking, should be paying the costs of the employer’s unilaterally imposed requirements under these circumstances?
2. Does the union agree that employees shouldn’t be donating their own “free” hours here? Does the union agree that commuting hours, under these circumstances, should be deducted from the weekly hours the employer contracted for in the collective agreement, so that it is instead the employer who bears the ongoing costs of its own pointless and harmful policy?
3. How long does the union expect employees to subsidize the employer’s in-office requirement while the union argues through official channels? What is the absolute best case outcome for employees from those official channels, in terms of both time and remedy?
4. Does the union agree that the employer can’t be allowed to keep imposing more unpaid hours and worse working conditions on employees? Does the union’s strength come from government processes or from collective action?

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2. Statistical / financial

The employer currently requires employees to commute three days a week and has already threatened four.

1. Since this policy started, how many total hours have employees spent on commuting to a job that can be done equally well or better from home?
2. For an individual employee who commutes half an hour in each direction, how much lost time does that work out to per year? What is this equivalent to per employee in vacation days or weeks?
3. What is the total cost of compliance to members, in both time (salary) and expenses (transportation, child care, etc.), each week that the in-office policy is complied with and cumulatively to date?
4. If the union isn’t tracking this information, which relates directly to the negotiated value of the collective agreement, why not?

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3. Official channels

Unions have been challenging the policy through the Federal Court and it was recently decided to seek review in Parliament as well.

1. What’s happening with the court case? Has a hearing been scheduled? When is a decision expected? If the decision gets appealed, how many years can members expect to wait before a final decision is issued? What is the best case outcome for members in terms of the remedy the courts could grant?
2. What’s happening with the review in Parliament? If the Committee agrees to study the issue, how long is a report in a contentious minority Parliament likely to take? What are the relevant remedial powers of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates? What is the best case outcome for members from a Parliamentary review?
3. In either case, assuming the union side is vindicated, can employees expect to be reimbursed either salary or lieu time for all the hours spent complying with the employers’ policy?

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4. Health and safety

Reported health and safety issues in federal office spaces include pests like mice and other rodents, bedbugs, bees / wasps / hornets, bats and cockroaches. The employer is providing inadequate equipment for employees to do their jobs and surveilling employees in ways the union has described as both Orwellian and dystopian.

In-office policies are known to have disproportionately negative impacts on certain employees, including racialized employees, women, 2SLGBTQQIA+ people, the neurodivergent, people with weakened immune systems, people experiencing mental illness, and people with mobility impairments. Pointless commutes are also bad for the environment, which affects everyone’s health.

In addition, currently 1 in 31 Canadians has COVID (1 in 31 in Québec, 1 in 28 in Ontario). It is known, including to the federal government, that COVID has been a “mass-disabling event,” and public transportation increases risk of exposure. Reinfection is a risk factor for long COVID, which can cause brain fog and fatigue and can also affect the cardiovascular system, the nervous system, the endocrine system, the immune system, the reproductive system and the gastrointestinal system.

1. Has the union done a GBA+ analysis on how its “official channels” approach is affecting marginalized employees? If not, why not?
2. What has to happen before a union recommends that employees not attend a workplace because the risk to health and safety is too great?
3. Is the union actively tracking reports of employees who get sick in relation to the commute to a communal office? If not, why not?
4. Has the union forecast how many federal employees are likely to be infected with COVID as a result of compliance with the in-office policy? How many employees are likely to become permanently disabled by Long COVID as a result? Does the union have reason to trust that the employer will provide sufficient support for sick and disabled employees?