Kelly McParland: Federal workers on the warpath over lack of desks for swollen public service

Coddled bureaucrats don't seem to know how good they have it

Published Oct 21, 2024  •  Last updated 0 minutes ago  •  4 minute read

Members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada picket outside Place du Portage in Gatineau, Que., in 2023. Photo by Justin Tang/The Canadian Press

There’s a wondrous circularity to the demand of federal public servants to work from the comfort of their homes rather than trudging into the offices around Ottawa that were built to house them.

Here’s the circle: COVID-19 came along and put huge demands on their services. The Trudeau government responded by hiring enormous numbers of new employees who were able, due to pandemic restrictions, to temporarily work from home. Now the virus is under control but the swollen numbers remain, and they don’t want to return to the office because, they claim, there’s not enough room available to accommodate them all.

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Innocent observers might think that, with the emergency over, Ottawa no longer needs all those extra bodies it hired. Let the numbers decline back to pre-COVID levels and voila, problem solved. But innocent observers have obviously never run a union, or a government department, where the idea of reduced membership is about as popular as a case of shingles.

It’s a fundamental tenet of collective bargaining that a job, once created, never ceases to be necessary. So the current position of federal labour leaders is that demanding employees return to the office is both mischievous and cruel, and that working from home should henceforth be the rule rather than the exception.

The public service has unquestionably ballooned under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Official figures put the current federal workforce at almost 388,000, up from 257,000 when the Liberals took office. That’s 111,000 more people on the public payroll, a jump of 40 per cent. Canada’s population has grown just 15 per cent over the same period. Only Trudeau’s father, as prime minister 40 years ago, employed more bureaucrats per Canadian.

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Costs have grown in tandem. While the Canadian Union of Public Employees disputes reports that public servants earn more on average than private-sector workers, benefits for government workers far outpace others.

Three times as many are covered by pensions than in the private sector; and while all but a few public pensions offer defined benefits, only a third of private pensions do. While generous pensions are a fading memory for most Canadians, Treasury Board President Anita Anand agreed this year to expand Ottawa’s plan to an even larger pool of civil servants.

Public employees retire earlier, take more time off and are much harder to dismiss. While employee numbers in Ottawa have exploded, some of Canada’s biggest companies have been slashing staff to cope with financial pressures: more than 6,000 at BCE; 3,000 at TD Bank; an estimated 800 at Corus Entertainment; 650 at Enbridge; plus hundreds more at Canada Goose, Hudson’s Bay Co., Indigo Books & Music, Laurentian Bank and others. Even the CBC said it would cut 800 jobs despite its annual $1.3-billion public subsidy, until the Trudeau government kicked in an extra $96 million.

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The federal payroll has been growing even as Canadian productivity declines. While careful not to place the blame on burgeoning government costs, Anand has announced — nine years into her government’s mandate — both a task force and a federal study into everything from the size and productivity of Ottawa’s workforce, to its use of technology.

In spite of their favoured position, federal employees have spent months campaigning against efforts to get them back into the office. The Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), which represents 240,000 workers, went to court to challenge a directive requiring them to spend at least three days a week, instead of two, in the office. The Canadian Association of Professional Employees (CAPE), with 27,000 members, is demanding a parliamentary committee conduct a hearing into the order.

According to union leaders, federal workers are upset at just about everything to do with government employment if it involves a desk and chair outside the home. There’s not enough space, offices can be noisy, morale is low, commuting is upsetting, parking is difficult and expensive, and higher-ups don’t know what they’re doing.

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CAPE president Nathan Prier said members have lost confidence in senior management and its “poorly designed, poorly implemented workplace policies.” The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission earned a blast from PSAC president Sharon DeSousa when it offered assigned office seating as a prize in a charity fundraiser. Union leaders vowed “a summer of discontent” when they first learned of the back-to-office order and have hardly quit complaining about Ottawa’s “anti-worker” attitude ever since.

Apart from the sense of wonderment it inspires, there’s a distinct feel of disconnect about the bureaucrats’ tirade. Their ultimate bosses, the federal Liberals, are under siege. Their popularity is in the tank, there are rumblings of a caucus revolt, cabinet ministers are quitting in bunches and the prime minister can’t go a day without being asked if he’s ever going to leave.

MPs’ own jobs are hanging by a thread and there could be an election soon, which could lead to a new government with a new prime minister whose message is all about controlling costs, downsizing government and getting “more for less.”

You’d think people who work for the government would be aware of these things. Maybe they need to spend more time in the office.

National Post

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