Public employees' remote work agreement just the beginning: labour expert
BNN Bloomberg
The agreement on remote and flexible work between public sector workers and the federal government could set the stage for future union negotiations, according to labour experts.
“We're basically entering a brand new phase of what we talk about in collective agreements, which includes workers’ autonomy over their time,” said Armine Yalnizyan, an economist and the Atkinson Fellow on the Future of Workers.
The Public Service Alliance of Canada and Ottawa announced they had reached tentative agreements Monday morning for more than 120,000 workers, with wage gains and a letter of understanding about remote and hybrid work.
The letter outside the collective agreement promises a joint review of the government’s directive on telework, and the union said the letter will mean managers have to assess telework requests individually instead of the government applying a one-size-fits-all approach.
