The Legault government wants to impose teleworking rules on its thousands of civil servants, without negotiation.
Hybrid working is now the norm among employees of ministries and public agencies, who are required to work at least two days a week in the office.
Quebec wants to continue to dictate the terms of teleworking to its staff, without civil servants having a say. This is a current sticking point in the negotiations between the government and its approximately 55,000 employees, who are moving forward at a leisurely pace.
Civil servants want to be able to negotiate the terms of teleworking and enshrine them in their collective agreement since they have a direct impact on their working conditions.
“For the moment, we have not had any feedback from the employer,” deplores the president of the SFPQ, Christian Daigle. It’s a complete rejection, he remains in his positions by saying that it’s about the organization of work and he wants to decide alone.”
He emphasizes that the framework policy imposed by the government on teleworking currently gives rise to unfair situations between employees.
For example, to achieve its objective of recruiting outside major centers, the state allows people from remote regions to work remotely five days a week. A worker who does the same job, but who lives in Quebec, will be required to report to the office for two days.
“I agree that we hire in the region, but that we provide the same working conditions,” insists Christian Daigle, who represents administrative staff, workers and technicians in particular. He adds that the employer can also currently force a person to do five days of teleworking. “It’s no longer volunteering!”
Favoritism
The observation is the same among government professionals. The rules for teleworking are applied differently from one ministry to another, sometimes even within the same department. And above all, there is no recourse possible.
“What we want is for it to be applied in the same way for everyone, that’s not what we see and that sometimes leaves room for favoritism,” argues Annie Morin, the first vice-president of the SPGQ.
She takes as an example the case of government agronomists who have to travel to farmers. Some managers calculate that this is face-to-face work, others not since the employee is not in the department. Not to mention sick leave and holidays falling on “office days”, which often have to be made up.
“We also want face-to-face work to be at the discretion of professionals, depending on the task to be accomplished. Each professional, we are autonomous, we know what we have to do and we know when it counts to be in the office,” adds Mme Morin.
Note that the collective agreements for members of the SFPQ and SPGQ expired on 1er April 2023.
In Minister Sonia LeBel’s office, we agree that teleworking is indeed part of discussions with the unions.
“The framework policy on teleworking has been in place since April 2022. Work can be carried out in hybrid mode, i.e. three days teleworking, two days face-to-face. Exceptions are possible, for one-off circumstances, or for example for new regionalized positions which do not yet have a physical workplace available,” it was argued.
A review of the teleworking policy is expected next April. “And if necessary, adjustments can be made,” we insisted.
SFPQ survey of its members
- Number of days employees currently work remotely:
- 0 day/week: 16%
- 1 day/week: 5%
- 2 days/week: 21%
- 3 days/week: 44%
- 4 days/week: 2%
- 5 days/week: 11%
- “In my workplace, access to teleworking is fair”: 21% of respondents tend to disagree or completely disagree
- “I sometimes complete a task outside of my working hours”: 16% of respondents answer often or very often
- “In the last twelve months, if, for one of the reasons mentioned below, you took time off during your day in the office, have you had to “resume” your working day in person?”: respondents said yes in the following proportions:
- Illness (45%)
- Vacation (21%)
- Holidays (36%)
Sample: 6098 civil servants, October 10 to 16, 2023