Correctional Service Canada requires thousands of workers on-site five days a week

Article content

The federal union representing parole officers and correctional program officers is fighting back after a Correctional Service of Canada announcement that more than 7,000 of its employees will no longer have the option to work from home, even for two days a week like thousands of other public servants.

According to the Union of Safety and Justice Employees (USJE), which represents more than 19,000 public servants, the federal agency has labelled employees in 14 groups as “front-line workers.” They include staff in correctional services, education and library science, electronics, nursing and general labour and trades groups, some of which are represented by other federal unions.

Article content

“They’re basically saying they’re front-line workers, they must be on site five days a week,” said USJE national president David Neufeld, who noted that managers would consider requests to work from home on a case-by-case basis. “What we’re asking is for them to use a flexible and nuanced approach and not a top-down approach.”

In May, the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat announced that all federal public servants under its purview — also known as the core public service — would have to work on-site at least three days a week starting on Sept. 9, with executives expected to be in the office at least four days a week.

The Correctional Service of Canada (CSC), which oversees the country’s federal prisons, said in an email that, given its unique mandate, the nature of its work and 24/7 operations, many of its staff were in the workplace full-time and had been throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Certain employees are ineligible for the hybrid work model given their duties are primarily performed in person or because of operational requirements required to uphold public safety,” a CSC spokesperson said.

Article content

Article content

While employees at regional and national headquarters will still have the opportunity to work from home, Neufeld said around 7,000 of the USJE’s members across the country would no longer have that option. About 35 of those members are based in the Ottawa area.

“A lot of our members work in very difficult working conditions, for example, in our institutions, where there’s always high stress,” Neufeld said, adding that CSC had required managers to be on-site almost every day. “If there’s a portion of their work that they’re able to do outside of that particular place or parole office or community correctional centre … That’s what we’re asking for.”

Neufeld noted that one of the groups impacted was parole officers, who spend about half of their time writing reports. Others impacted are administrative assistants and Indigenous community development officers.

“It’s not taking away from time with the inmates or the offenders in the community that they’re working with, it’s basically taking some of the tasks and responsibilities that they do in the workplace and just shifting them in a remote way to help produce better work, better productivity and also, of course, help improve overall mental wellbeing,” Neufeld said.

Article content

When it comes to the Public Service Employee Survey — a workplace survey public servants fill out every two years — Neufeld pointed out that CSC was often rated poorly by employees. In the last survey in 2022, just 46 per cent of CSC employees said they would recommend their agency as a “great place to work,” compared to 73 per cent in the overall public service.

An “info picket” was held at CSC’s headquarters last week in response to the new directive that the USJE had said it “wholeheartedly rejects.”

“We are going to be actively contesting this decision,” USJE regional vice-president J.P. Surette said in a news release. “Whether you are in the regions or at (national headquarters), there is a lot of good work that can be done from home. We’ve already proven that.”

Article content