A gain for unions might be a gain for non union if we’re talking comparable industries, like union electricians or plumbers. Those are industries where people can leave their non union employer and go union, or work to unionize their employer.
For general office work that’s not the case. Government administration positions don’t all have non union equivalents. Office workers don’t generally unionize. You can’t just quit your non union job and get a government job, those are hard to come by. So a gain for government service workers is irrelevant to the general public, or in the case of increased wages just means increased taxes. There’s a sense of jealousy of those with government positions, as well as schadenfreude when they get screwed over.
The government hired so many employees in the last few years including tons of positions where they didn’t care about distance from an office until December 2022 (and that are now exempted from RTO)… I don’t think that argument has too much weight to it, people complain without trying to leave their current job, that’s why office workers don’t see as much gains but I can guarantee you, gains at the federal level has make impacts in the private sector and outside of the GOC in the Ottawa-Gatineau region because employers need to compete (a receptionist position for a small town paying 30$/h???). Make the public service as open to WFH as possible and now it’s employers from all over Canada that will need to compete with it for office jobs and those in the private sector should realize that!
A gain for unions might be a gain for non union if we’re talking comparable industries, like union electricians or plumbers. Those are industries where people can leave their non union employer and go union, or work to unionize their employer.
For general office work that’s not the case. Government administration positions don’t all have non union equivalents. Office workers don’t generally unionize. You can’t just quit your non union job and get a government job, those are hard to come by. So a gain for government service workers is irrelevant to the general public, or in the case of increased wages just means increased taxes. There’s a sense of jealousy of those with government positions, as well as schadenfreude when they get screwed over.
The government hired so many employees in the last few years including tons of positions where they didn’t care about distance from an office until December 2022 (and that are now exempted from RTO)… I don’t think that argument has too much weight to it, people complain without trying to leave their current job, that’s why office workers don’t see as much gains but I can guarantee you, gains at the federal level has make impacts in the private sector and outside of the GOC in the Ottawa-Gatineau region because employers need to compete (a receptionist position for a small town paying 30$/h???). Make the public service as open to WFH as possible and now it’s employers from all over Canada that will need to compete with it for office jobs and those in the private sector should realize that!