A union representing engineers at SNC-Lavalin Group has filed a complaint with the Canada Industrial Relations Board alleging bad faith negotiations, after a company subsidiary ordered its workers to return to the office full-time with one business day’s notice.
Posted yesterday at 3:31 p.m.
On June 2, Candu Energy asked all of its employees to return to face-to-face work beginning Monday, June 6, a requirement that the Society of Professional Engineers and Associates union says amounts to a bargaining tactic in the face of d A rotating strike was called on May 29 at the Darlington nuclear power plant in Ontario, where Candu is carrying out work.
In a copy of the memo obtained by The Canadian Press, SNC vice-president Bill Fox reminded workers that a hybrid work model that could be in effect Sept. 12 was “on the table,” meaning that the abruptly announced “full-time office work policy” “may change after the conclusion of negotiations”.
Union spokeswoman Denise Coombs argued that SNC-Lavalin’s sudden decision to bring more than 700 engineers, scientists and technicians back to the office five days a week left them scrambling for accommodation and housing issues. to childcare after more than two years of working remotely, and was tantamount to an unfair labor practice given the bargaining context.
In a letter to the union and SNC on Tuesday, copied to The Canadian Press, the chief executives of Ontario Power Generation and Bruce Power warned they would have to consider “alternative arrangements” if the two parties could not provide “certainty” in their services, adding that as customers they did not expect to be treated as “negotiators”.
SNC spokesman Harold Fortin said collaboration and training were among the benefits of working in the office and that “it (was) time to return to the physical places of work” since “people increasingly accustomed to being together in indoor spaces”.