Unions say cuts to blame for workers’ woes highlighted in survey
Employee engagement and empowerment are on the decline, according to the federal government's 2014 Public Service Employee Survey. Fewer public service workers said they liked their job or got a sense of satisfaction from their work than in the past two surveys, conducted in 2011 and 2008.
Additionally, 66 per cent of the thousands of employees surveyed said they believed they had the support they needed to provide a high level of service — a decrease from 75 per cent in 2011.
These troubling findings can be traced back to ongoing cuts to the public service, according to the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC). “It paints a picture that’s not really pretty for the public service right now,” said PSAC national president Robyn Benson.
“The survey has some pretty damaging results for the government. This should be raising some red flags.”
The survey is conducted every three years, led by the Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer (Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat) in collaboration with Statistics Canada. Conducted regularly since 1999, it measures employees’ opinions regarding engagement, leadership, the workforce and the workplace.
The 2014 survey was conducted between Aug. 25 and Oct. 3, 2014. A total of 182,165 employees in 93 federal departments and agencies responded to the survey for a total response rate of 71.4 per cent. Newer questions around harassment, discrimination New questions were added to the 2014 government survey to address harassment and dis- crimination issues raised in previous surveys.
About one-fifth (19 per cent) of public service employees said they experienced harassment in the past two years, according to the 2014 results. The most common types of harassment were offensive remarks, unfair treatment and being excluded or ignored.
Of the employees who reported being harassed, seven per cent indicated they had filed a grievance or formal complaint while 25 per cent reported they had taken no action. Of the employees surveyed in 2014, eight per cent reported experiencing discrimination in the past two years.
The most common forms of discrimination included sex (24 per cent), age (23 per cent) and race (20 per cent). Of the employees who reported being discriminated against, seven per cent indicated they had filed a grievance or formal complaint while 48 per cent indicated they had taken no action. Tony Clement, president of the Treasury Board, said the federal government is committed to providing a safe environment for public service employees.
“Harassment and discrimination are unacceptable and will not be tolerated,” Clement said in a statement. “We have implemented policies, and training, as well as formal and informal recourse mechanisms to ensure that leaders and employees have the tools they need to prevent and resolve workplace harassment and dis- crimination. We must continue our efforts in these areas.”
The 2014 survey’s new questions concerning harassment and discrimination will provide the government with a better understanding of these issues and allow for more informed responses in the future, according to the Treasury Board.
Benson, however, said unions would have been included in the survey process if the government was serious about improving the workplace for public service employees. She said union input on the content — and even the wording — of survey questions would yield more meaningful data.
The results of the 2014 survey, Benson said, clearly show unions are more in touch with the needs of public service workers.
“Those responses are indicators there are problems in the workplace. While the government wants to take sick leave we, on the other hand, want to ensure that when our members go to work, it’s to a healthy and safe environment so they can continue to serve Canadians,” Benson said.
She called the government’s efforts to scrap sick leave troubling.
“It’s problematic, what’s taking place. For us, I think that’s all very indicative of the attitude within the Treasury Board. This is a government where Mr. Clement has been very disrespectful to his employees, our members, and I think it shows through in this survey.” Benson pointed to the survey’s results concerning work-life balance and workload as well as results concerning organizational performance.
In the 2014 survey, 71 per cent of employees agreed they had adequate support for work-life balance, down from 75 per cent in the previous survey.
Additionally, 48 per cent of employees surveyed said having to do the same or more work with fewer resources affected the quality of their work “always/almost always” or “often.” This was an increase from 44 per cent in 2011 and 42 per cent in 2008.
Warren “Smokey” Thomas, president of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU), said the 2014 Public Service Employee Survey should act as a wakeup call. “The government has been shrinking the size of the public service but the work didn’t go away. So they’re just forcing fewer people to do more with less,” Thomas said. “And it really has taken a toll on people, and it’s starting to show. I would hope what the government takes away from the survey is that all the cuts to public services are not good. They’re not healthy.”
Additional front-line workers would alleviate the workload, said Thomas, though he did not anticipate a hiring boom anytime soon.
Something the government could easily do, Thomas said, is adjust its attitude toward workers.
“You can’t cut them, you can’t blame them for all the woes in the world and use them like scape- goats,” he said. “Labour relations are every bit as complex as the relationship in a marriage. I wish they would learn that from the survey.”
