Pending Strike! Political Motives versus Personal Needs.

Political, Social & Ethical Dilemmas

The union which represents our group has been in negotiations for the past two years. Obviously, the delays in reaching an agreement can be easily correlated to the COVID pandemic as most government attention was focused on dealing with the highest priority issues and maintaining our economy while providing the essentials to the Canadian population. The pandemic changed many aspects of our personal lives and how business is conducted.

Personal & Business Changes

One significant change included a rapid need for people to work from home, along with a rapid adoption of software to facilitate daily work activities and productivity. This shift in business requirements, driven by the pandemic, was essential due to the lockdowns resulting in both positive and negative personal impacts.

Positive impacts could include increased quality of life (more time with family), reduced costs (less commuting/child-care) and greater flexibility.

Negative impacts could include greater distractions (no dedicated office at home), distancing from colleagues (less team building) and motivation (less desire to work).

For many, I can assume the move to remote work was well received, like myself, with the benefits outweighing the challenges. Reflecting on Maslow's Hierarchy of Human Needs, my opinion would be that remote work would meet, and exceed, the basic needs, with some level of psychological needs being achieved. In turn, this would provide greater happiness and productivity from individuals working at the higher levels of the scale.

As businesses needed to adapt to these remote work changes, the dynamic shift allowed little time for many to conduct analysis and to establish baselines in order to measure business outcomes and impacts. As I am not a business owner, I cannot speak to the overall impact, but from my perspective, can assure that many of our projects have maintained momentum with minor impacts from the shift.

Cause & Effect

Cause

The pandemic resulted in many shutdowns and extensive economic stimulus packages, from the Government, with the goal to maintain stability for the economy and people at great financial cost to our government. The stimulus packages provided many individuals with disposable income enabling discretionary spending to soar. Excess spending, concurrent with supply chain disruptions, led to inflation levels not seen by many generations. In turn, this has cause the Bank of Canada to raise interests rates with the goal to regain control of inflation and bring it back down to their 2% target.

In my opinion, it appears that remote work was successful for most, but I cannot confirm that business productivity was maintained or increased. Nonetheless, remote work appears to be entrenched after three years of pandemic related remote work with little desire for many to return full time to the workplace. I would assume that much of the resistance of individuals to return to an office, full-time, could be related to the many benefits and some challenges they may experience to shift the family dynamics in order to return to an office, such as child care, second vehicle and less flexibility.

Effect

As our union has been in negotiations for the past two years, the members had to "weather the storm", including periods of high inflation, while negotiations continued. The union representatives have requested higher increases in pay to compensate for the higher inflation. In addition, they have been requesting provisions be made in the collective agreement for remote work to be imbedded and more clearly defined.

The demands from the union have proven difficult for the government to accept with negotiations being extended and an impending strike on the horizon. I can only speculate the government concerns, but would assume they are related to setting a precedence with the numerous other unions that fall under the government and/or those who have recently reached agreements.

Moral & Ethical Dilemma

I find myself torn between a moral and ethical dilemma. I wish to support the union members with establishing higher levels of pay and establishing clear guidelines for remote work, but find myself struggling to fully justify these demands.

Moral Dilemma

I can empathize with the union demands as I have also benefited from remote work and have been impacted by inflation along with my fellow union members. The pay increases based on, what the Bank of Canada states, normal inflation (2%), does not seem appropriate with inflation averaging 6.2% annually in 2022 (Stats Can). The moral dilemma is that many Canadians were not so lucky throughout the pandemic with many finding themselves out of work. Even with low unemployment numbers, finding jobs with sufficient income to afford the higher costs of inflation and housing is a challenge to many outside of our union.

Ethical Dilemma

Being a government employee, I can understand the predicament the government faces as they attempt to lower spending with the goal of balancing the budget in support of Canadians. Accepting the demands of the union will further impact government spending and affect local businesses should remote work become "the norm" as local eateries, cafes and commercial buildings will increasingly feel the pressure of diminishing government staff in the workplace.

Nonetheless, the union representatives have consulted with their members and are doing what they perceive they are mandated in support of the members. By giving into government pressure, any unjustified concessions could erode the entire concept for all federal, provincial and private unions in Canada and could have lasting effects for their members.

All I can do is wait and see what decisions are made!

If you enjoyed this read, please comment and Subscribe for more opinions to come.