Juno News - Ottawa civil servants still resisting in-person work

00:00:00.000 you're tuned in to the andrew lawton show

00:00:05.920 let's get back to the public sector here aaron woodrick is the director of the domestic policy

00:00:14.420 program for the mcdonald laurier institute and joins us now uh aaron it's always good to talk

00:00:19.540 to you so this story i find just fascinating the federal government says civil servants have to go

00:00:25.040 back into the office three days a week it's not even like they're being forced in five days a

00:00:29.720 week like they were up until march of 2020 three days a week and it's as though you've committed

00:00:35.320 this just grave injustice against public sector unionized workers in ottawa what the heck is going

00:00:41.920 on here yeah it's uh it does speak to an entitlement issue right i mean you got to have perspective and

00:00:47.380 i think if there's any allegation and people will know this from my days advocating with the taxpayers

00:00:51.040 federation i've been i've been tough on the public sector at times right and and that's largely because

00:00:55.740 uh i don't think sometimes folks in the public sector appreciate how good they have it i mean

00:01:00.200 even when you think about things like defined benefit pensions which are basically extinct in

00:01:04.460 the private sector the level of job security i mean these are pretty important uh things that a lot of

00:01:10.680 people would give the right arm for and so i think at times when the public sector complains about

00:01:16.160 things not being as you know optimal for them they need to recognize that there's an audience out

00:01:23.140 there of canadians they don't have anywhere near those things and so they you know it comes across

00:01:27.700 sometimes a little bit toned out yeah and i mean look i think there are arguments to be made about

00:01:33.160 whether with work in general of whether work can be rethought whether traditional offices nine to

00:01:39.140 five jobs can be rethought but the idea that government gets something that basically the private

00:01:44.260 sector never will or government workers get something that most private sector employees never will

00:01:49.540 is always the part that rubs me the wrong way about this i mean we talked about this in the

00:01:53.100 context of executive bonuses with chris sims a few moments ago but it's especially true on an

00:01:57.540 arrangement like this like any private sector office worker uh that i've spoken to with few exceptions so

00:02:03.240 i shouldn't say any most of them are looking at this and are like give me a break i had to go back

00:02:07.320 to the office a year and a half ago yeah absolutely and in a lot of cases the response i always used to

00:02:13.400 get from you know people in the in the public sector or the union leaders in the public sector as well

00:02:18.240 the the government is being the leader in this right when i'd say well we can't afford to find

00:02:22.180 benefit pensions they say well the it's the private sector should have them too well and the obvious

00:02:25.960 reason inder that they don't have them is they can't afford them is that unlike the government

00:02:29.240 businesses don't have unlimited funds right they have to stay afloat and so i think sometimes again

00:02:35.400 in the public sector they need to recognize that they're not facing the same kind of constraints that

00:02:39.980 those in the private sector have and that while i never begrudge any group sort of banding together to

00:02:45.020 try and get the best deal they can have they have often have power and negotiating power that uh that

00:02:50.620 people in the private sector just don't have and they don't have a lot of sympathy for people that

00:02:55.480 are crying about things and saying oh you know boohoo you have to go in three days a week instead of two

00:03:00.120 i've been going back five days a week for years it just it just strikes the ear wrong i think

00:03:05.360 so you offer in the hub what i think is an olive branch and i suspect the public service alliance of

00:03:11.440 canada might not see it that way uh but uh you say federal public servants can get their remote work

00:03:16.740 but in return they should expect more rigorous performance reviews uh what do you mean yeah i i

00:03:22.900 you know i this is a bit of a contrarian take and some people were surprised to see me say this but

00:03:27.680 i think part of the issue we have right now is this is that um you know the the people of public

00:03:32.880 service they really like the remote work just like a lot of people who uh enjoy the remote work

00:03:36.760 um now does that mean they should always get it not necessarily but i do think we should acknowledge

00:03:41.180 the type of white collar work the type of work at a computer that is the ideal type of work for 0.95

00:03:46.000 remote work if you're going to have it at all and most of the public sector is that kind of work most

00:03:50.480 of the government jobs in ottawa involve the type of work where you log onto a computer and type at a

00:03:54.980 keyboard i think we should be open to remote work um in those cases the other thing i think is a lot of

00:04:01.400 the thing that is motivating uh both the government and the public to want to get uh public servants

00:04:06.620 back to work has nothing to do with whether or not um they need to be there it's more a sense of

00:04:12.120 i think you're lazy and i'd rather have you at a desk and my response to that is first of all i will

00:04:17.460 defend civil servants on that are there bad ones i'm certain there are who don't work um but otherwise

00:04:22.380 i think many of them are happy to do their work um and i think you know if your real concern is that

00:04:28.200 civil servants are lazy well i can tell you they'll probably be lazy sitting at their desk

00:04:32.140 downtown at the office just as much as they will at home so that doesn't solve anything

00:04:35.460 even worse because now you've got the social aspect the coffee station the well this is it

00:04:40.100 yeah and andrew i almost think like look let's be honest for some people it's just about sticking

00:04:44.660 it to them it's about saying you know what i don't like you so i'm gonna make you trudge

00:04:48.280 downtown to the office i think that's a poor reason to do it the same as way you know doug ford says

00:04:52.880 they need to get back down there so the restaurants are that is not a reason

00:04:55.780 to send people into the office just because it supports the you know the restaurants at lunch

00:05:00.340 and that's a terrible reason but what i am saying is they want this so bad let's make a deal let's

00:05:05.100 make a deal that gives both sides what they want you can get your remote work but you have we have

00:05:09.060 to talk about your pensions we have to talk about productivity and performance measurement we want

00:05:13.900 canadians to get good value for their money so if you're willing to accept some kind of oversight

00:05:18.940 some kind of measurement some something that gives people confidence you're doing work and you're

00:05:22.860 doing it well and canadians are getting value for the tax dollars then we can talk about remote work

00:05:27.340 i think that's a good trade both for canadians and for civil servants and they should seriously

00:05:31.820 think about that yeah and i think it brings it back to the broader idea of this that doesn't have

00:05:36.260 anything to do with government or private sector it's just generally about remote work and look

00:05:41.340 i i worked remotely before it was cool too i i worked from home before covid came along and i like it i think

00:05:47.020 there are some deficiencies in it but we have a team at true north that's scattered around the

00:05:50.780 country so it's just not practical to work anything but remotely but it comes down to a performance

00:05:56.300 question you know if if you can perform at the same level regardless of where you are i don't think it

00:06:01.900 should matter if there is a deficit in some way of what you're able to do at home that needs to be

00:06:07.340 accounted for in some way whether it's you know people work a bit longer whether you change i mean you

00:06:12.860 you have to have some way of of addressing that i understand the convenience i mean you save money

00:06:17.580 on parking you save money on gas you save just frustration of travel time all of that but but

00:06:22.780 we need to have the discussion of productivity and there has to be a way to measure that productivity

00:06:27.740 i think exactly and the measurement historically for the civil service has been did you show up at

00:06:32.140 your desk downtown were you there at the hour and did you leave and i'm saying that was always a bad

00:06:36.220 measurement and we should take this opportunity now to say you know what i'm okay with a with an

00:06:41.100 arrangement whether it's public or private saying here are your tasks you need to perform these

00:06:45.740 tasks well on time by this time if you do that i don't care where you work i think that can work

00:06:50.860 both in the public and private sector but that's not what we have right now so i think we need to

00:06:55.020 you know and it's really a test here andrew to see just how badly folks in the public service

00:07:00.300 want this they should be willing to accept that i'm willing about a lot of them are um the other

00:07:04.140 thing too i would say uh with remote work like you i've i've long worked remotely it's it's

00:07:09.500 certainly been a benefit to me and my family but the nature of the work i've done um has suited itself

00:07:14.300 to that i think the civil service we remember the um headaches with passports you know it was taking

00:07:19.020 canadians forever to get a passport that that gave people the reason to believe that not being in the

00:07:23.980 office was a problem right and so i think the civil service needs to prove that it can deliver

00:07:28.860 remotely otherwise you're going to have people saying hey if you're not being productive i'm waiting

00:07:32.780 forever for stuff because you're working from home i want to see you back in the office because

00:07:36.060 in your mind maybe that will fix the problem well and also the other thing we we've seen this in the

00:07:41.740 context of in a lot of ways is just the the remote work question as a convenience is great but you can't

00:07:48.540 just make that policy based on the fact that it's more convenient for you as an individual you have to

00:07:53.180 figure out the value add i mean there's always the age-old problem if you start heaping productivity

00:07:57.580 on people is that or heaping tasks on people is that we have to rethink the idea of nine to five work in

00:08:02.780 general i mean there are people that are very effective that do a lot and what do they do they

00:08:06.780 finish their work in six hours so their employer gives them more work to do uh whereas the people

00:08:11.500 that take the eight hours for the same work end up doing less so i think in general we need a bit of

00:08:16.460 a rethink on these things across the board not just in government yeah i think so and remember there are

00:08:22.060 other trade-offs involved uh if you're say for example you're someone and i'm a recovering lawyer if

00:08:26.700 you're a junior lawyer it's your first year you learn a lot of what you do from this more senior lawyers

00:08:32.300 around you right from being in the office next to the senior partner and just sort of being called

00:08:36.220 in ad hoc when you do all remote work you lose some of that so as much as i am a supporter of

00:08:41.100 flex work and in some cases especially once you're past a certain level of more remote work

00:08:45.740 um it's absolutely true that a lot of professions the networking the skill transfer a lot of that comes

00:08:51.260 from proximity physical proximity to the people that you work with so that has to be part of it like

00:08:55.980 what does a civil service look like where your more junior people are never around the more

00:09:01.660 seasoned experts there's something there so i think that has to be part of the discussion

00:09:06.060 all i'm saying is that uh you know this looks like another run-of-the-mill labor uh labor strife that

00:09:11.260 we're going to have in ottawa i think there's unique opportunity here given the context and we shouldn't

00:09:15.500 we shouldn't throw all that stuff out the window because this type of uh situation may not present

00:09:19.500 itself uh soon again anytime very briefly i'm pulling you off topic here but i know true north was a

00:09:26.060 signatory to this uh declaration this ottawa declaration the mcdonald lorry institute was

00:09:31.340 was instrumental in uh asking for something that a few years ago wouldn't have seemed all that

00:09:35.340 controversial the government not subsidized the media but now there's a clear line on this you have

00:09:41.020 big media companies in canada the toronto star post media the globe mail who are as they describe it

00:09:46.300 entirely dependent on government subsidies to survive and these independent players like not just true north

00:09:53.180 than the hub but paul wells who's done a great job on substack uh he signed this as well uh why did

00:09:58.620 you take this on yeah look we just think it's an important issue we care about democracy and we care

00:10:03.740 about a free press and in our view institutionally it's simply incompatible for a media organization

00:10:09.500 to be dependent on government and claim to be independent it just completely undermines any claim

00:10:14.140 and i don't want to suggest that every organization or every journalist that's employed by uh an

00:10:19.420 organization that takes government money is like actively trying to suck up to the government but

00:10:23.660 what i am saying is it's impossible to get past the in the impression of a conflict of interest like

00:10:28.940 the average person all it will take um if you're an organization that covers say the trudeau government

00:10:34.460 flatteringly it's very easy for people to draw the link between saying well of course you would say

00:10:38.540 that because you're receiving money from them so i think if you truly want to be independent you have

00:10:42.700 to be willing to say we've got to stand on our own two feet we're very glad that true north is one of the

00:10:46.620 organizations that has sworn that signed that declaration all right well aaron woodrick always

00:10:50.620 good to talk to you sir thanks so much for coming on thanks a lot andrew thanks for listening to

00:10:55.180 the andrew lawton show support the program by donating to true north at www.tnc.news

Juno News - June 08, 2024

Ottawa civil servants still resisting in-person work

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