As British Columbia’s public sector strike stretches into its second week, one of the key sticking points in negotiations remains contract language around remote and hybrid work.
Currently, about 4,000 of the B.C. General Employee Union’s members work from home either full or part-time, and members are pushing for new contract language to reflect the arrangement.
“It’s very important for our membership,” said Dean Purdy, BCGEU Component 1 vice president for corrections and sheriffs.
“We’ve got a number of bargaining proposals for the bargaining committee, for us to negotiate that language.“
The remote provisions are important enough to the union that they’ve built their strike strategy around it.
Members who live within 30 kilometres of a picket site are asked to come down in person, while those who live further away are permitted to do work for the union like making calls, or even gathering online.
Amid wildfire-related air quality issues, the union even moved to fully virtual pickets in the Prince George and Williams Lake area on Tuesday.
“Basically, our member are coming together in kind of virtual online rooms to discuss with each other, talk with each other, that’s what is happening,” BCGEU president Paul Finch said.
While some other provinces and federal agencies have ordered public sector employees back to the office, B.C. has embraced remote work.
While the public service doesn’t guarantee the option, the province says it is “is committed to making available flexible workplace arrangements suitable” for remote and in-office work “where the arrangement is beneficial to both the employee and their work unit.”
It’s a change Victoria’s business community is unhappy about.
John Wilson, CEO of the Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce, said the city’s downtown core is “in crisis” as it grapples with crime, social disorder, labour shortages and rising costs.
Wilson believes that crisis is exacerbated by the flight of civil servants from the area, where the provincial legislature also happens to be.
“The public sector workforce in the downtown core is instrumental in supporting some of these small and mid-sized businesses. Some of them were put in place to support that workforce, whether it be coffee shops, lunch shops, things like that,” he said.
“The downtown core needs these workers back in the office space, the private industry, the economy and the vibrancy of downtown Victoria is being greatly affected — I think it has a trickle-down effect on the safety and disorder in the downtown core, too, with the lack of busyness down here.”
Wilson said Victoria’s downtown has already seen a number of businesses close in recent months, and the community is at risk of hollowing out if civil servants don’t return to their workplaces.
Meanwhile, the BCGEU’s strike shows no signs of winding down, with some 4,000 members now on the picket lines, and the union vowing to escalate if the province doesn’t meet its wage demands.
The province has offered a a 4.5 per cent compensation boost over two years, including cost-of-living allowances.
The ministry of finance said the union is seeking 15.75 per cent, but Finch called that “creative math” because it includes an entire “menu” of cost of living allowances that are options.
— With a file from The Canadian Press