Economy

As economy recovers from pandemic doldrums, big employers step up push to get back to the office

Published

1 year ago

May 6, 2023

From a strong job market to the World Health Organization officially downgrading COVID-19’s status as a global health emergency, signs that the economy is recovering from the pandemic are everywhere.

But there’s perhaps no clearer one, in hollowed-out downtown cores across the country, than the sight of millions of office workers returning to cities after spending much of the past three years working from home.

The trend is undeniable. Cellphone data suggests that Canadian cities are now about half as full of people during the workday compared with before the pandemic. That’s well up from under 10 per cent observed at various points since 2020, when the pandemic began and lockdowns were implemented.

While Canadian cities are still laggards compared with those in the United States, a number of major employers are trying to do what they can to close that gap.

3 days a week

After allowing its office employees to work from home during the pandemic, Canada’s most valuable company, the Royal Bank of Canada, took a major step in mandating that, effective May 1, its staff come into the office at least three days a week, citing productivity concerns.

“I think that the absence of working together in many ways has led to productivity and innovation challenges, and society isn’t back together enough and working enough,” president and CEO Dave McKay said in explaining the decision.

RBC isn’t the only company that thinks that. As of this week, e-commerce giant Amazon is doing the same thing, requiring virtually all staff to be in the office at least three days a week.

Bringing thousands of people back to the office — some of whom have never even been there because they were hired during the pandemic — is a complex problem, “so we’re going to give the teams that need to do that work some time to develop a plan,” Amazon’s president and CEO, Andy Jassy, said.

Mackenzie Irwin, an employment lawyer with Samfiru Tumarkin LLP in Toronto and Ottawa, said that’s wise, because employers are risking legal headaches if they force changes to people’s working conditions unreasonably.

“You’ve got to give your employees sufficient notice and time to make necessary arrangements in order to come back,” she told CBC News in an interview.

Workers weigh in on return to the office

In downtown Toronto this week, office workers shared their thoughts with CBC News about the pros and cons of coming back into the office after working mostly from home for much of the pandemic.

Irwin said her office is being flooded with calls from employees hired during the pandemic who are now being asked to come into the office and want to know their rights.

The bad news? For most workers, the employer is on very solid ground in asking people to come back.

“For the majority of employees, if you started working remotely throughout the pandemic … your employer does have a right to recall you back to the office,” she said. “If your employment contract doesn’t specifically state that your position is a remote position … your employer does have a right to call you back.”

Irwin said working from home during the pandemic was life-changing for workers — many of whom were able to lock in those gains by negotiating them in a contract when companies were desperate to find staff.

“But now we’re seeing a switch, where there’s a lot of downsizing, not a lot of hiring,” she said. “It may be that we’re coming into a scenario where that leverage is kind of lost for the employees.”

Right vs. privilege

Linda Duxbury, a professor of management and strategy at Carleton University’s Sprott School of Business in Ottawa, said the current brouhaha over working from home boils down to a fundamental disagreement between workers and employers over whether it’s a development that’s good for the entire company or simply a perk that some workers get and others don’t.

“After they’ve worked from home for two or three years, many people think it’s a right,” she said in an interview. “But many employers do not think it’s a right, they think it’s a privilege.”

Duxbury said it’s important to remember that working from home is a moot point for most people because a majority of them have jobs where it can’t be done. But for the rest, the two sides are digging in because they don’t agree on what the goals are.

“Back before the pandemic, when employers talked about productivity, it was really equated to hours at work, being available 24/7, working, being visible, never saying no, et cetera,” she said in an interview.

Employees who are thriving by working from home say they’re putting in as many hours as they were before and that their work output is the same if not more, Duxbury said.

“But employers have changed the definition of productivity. Now they’re saying it’s about creativity, innovation, social connection, culture.”

The problem for employers, she said, is that there is very little empirical evidence to back up the theory that in-person collaboration is better for business — which makes workers who are meeting and exceeding the same work targets they’ve always had feeling needlessly aggrieved for being required to return to the office.

“We have to be able to have the discussion on productivity — not focusing on hours and availability — but focusing on output,” Duxbury said.

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Business

A timeline of events in the bread price-fixing scandal

Published

11 hours ago

September 19, 2024

Anne Joseph

Almost seven years since news broke of an alleged conspiracy to fix the price of packaged bread across Canada, the saga isn’t over: the Competition Bureau continues to investigate the companies that may have been involved, and two class-action lawsuits continue to work their way through the courts.

Here’s a timeline of key events in the bread price-fixing case.

Oct. 31, 2017: The Competition Bureau says it’s investigating allegations of bread price-fixing and that it was granted search warrants in the case. Several grocers confirm they are co-operating in the probe.

Dec. 19, 2017: Loblaw and George Weston say they participated in an “industry-wide price-fixing arrangement” to raise the price of packaged bread. The companies say they have been co-operating in the Competition Bureau’s investigation since March 2015, when they self-reported to the bureau upon discovering anti-competitive behaviour, and are receiving immunity from prosecution. They announce they are offering $25 gift cards to customers amid the ongoing investigation into alleged bread price-fixing.

Jan. 31, 2018: In court documents, the Competition Bureau says at least $1.50 was added to the price of a loaf of bread between about 2001 and 2016.

Dec. 20, 2019: A class-action lawsuit in a Quebec court against multiple grocers and food companies is certified against a number of companies allegedly involved in bread price-fixing, including Loblaw, George Weston, Metro, Sobeys, Walmart Canada, Canada Bread and Giant Tiger (which have all denied involvement, except for Loblaw and George Weston, which later settled with the plaintiffs).

Dec. 31, 2021: A class-action lawsuit in an Ontario court covering all Canadian residents except those in Quebec who bought packaged bread from a company named in the suit is certified against roughly the same group of companies.

June 21, 2023: Bakery giant Canada Bread Co. is fined $50 million after pleading guilty to four counts of price-fixing under the Competition Act as part of the Competition Bureau’s ongoing investigation.

Oct. 25 2023: Canada Bread files a statement of defence in the Ontario class action denying participating in the alleged conspiracy and saying any anti-competitive behaviour it participated in was at the direction and to the benefit of its then-majority owner Maple Leaf Foods, which is not a defendant in the case (neither is its current owner Grupo Bimbo). Maple Leaf calls Canada Bread’s accusations “baseless.”

Dec. 20, 2023: Metro files new documents in the Ontario class action accusing Loblaw and its parent company George Weston of conspiring to implicate it in the alleged scheme, denying involvement. Sobeys has made a similar claim. The two companies deny the allegations.

July 25, 2024: Loblaw and George Weston say they agreed to pay a combined $500 million to settle both the Ontario and Quebec class-action lawsuits. Loblaw’s share of the settlement includes a $96-million credit for the gift cards it gave out years earlier.

Sept. 12, 2024: Canada Bread files new documents in Ontario court as part of the class action, claiming Maple Leaf used it as a “shield” to avoid liability in the alleged scheme. Maple Leaf was a majority shareholder of Canada Bread until 2014, and the company claims it’s liable for any price-fixing activity. Maple Leaf refutes the claims.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:L, TSX:MFI, TSX:MRU, TSX:EMP.A, TSX:WN)

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Economy

S&P/TSX composite up more than 250 points, U.S. stock markets also higher

Published

11 hours ago

September 19, 2024

Anne Joseph

TORONTO – Canada’s main stock index was up more than 250 points in late-morning trading, led by strength in the base metal and technology sectors, while U.S. stock markets also charged higher.

The S&P/TSX composite index was up 254.62 points at 23,847.22.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 432.77 points at 41,935.87. The S&P 500 index was up 96.38 points at 5,714.64, while the Nasdaq composite was up 486.12 points at 18,059.42.

The Canadian dollar traded for 73.68 cents US compared with 73.58 cents US on Thursday.

The November crude oil contract was up 89 cents at US$70.77 per barrel and the October natural gas contract was down a penny at US2.27 per mmBTU.

The December gold contract was up US$9.40 at US$2,608.00 an ounce and the December copper contract was up four cents at US$4.33 a pound.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:GSPTSE, TSX:CADUSD)

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Economy

Construction wraps on indoor supervised site for people who inhale drugs in Vancouver

Published

1 day ago

September 18, 2024

Anne Joseph

VANCOUVER – Supervised injection sites are saving the lives of drug users everyday, but the same support is not being offered to people who inhale illicit drugs, the head of the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS says.

Dr. Julio Montaner said the construction of Vancouver’s first indoor supervised site for people who inhale drugs comes as the percentage of people who die from smoking drugs continues to climb.

The location in the Downtown Eastside at the Hope to Health Research and Innovation Centre was unveiled Wednesday after construction was complete, and Montaner said people could start using the specialized rooms in a matter of weeks after final approvals from the city and federal government.

“If we don’t create mechanisms for these individuals to be able to use safely and engage with the medical system, and generate points of entry into the medical system, we will never be able to solve the problem,” he said.

“Now, I’m not here to tell you that we will fix it tomorrow, but denying it or ignoring it, or throw it under the bus, or under the carpet is no way to fix it, so we need to take proactive action.”

Nearly two-thirds of overdose deaths in British Columbia in 2023 came after smoking illicit drugs, yet only 40 per cent of supervised consumption sites in the province offer a safe place to smoke, often outdoors, in a tent.

The centre has been running a supervised injection site for years which sees more than a thousand people monthly and last month resuscitated five people who were overdosing.

The new facilities offer indoor, individual, negative-pressure rooms that allow fresh air to circulate and can clear out smoke in 30 to 60 seconds while users are monitored by trained nurses.

Advocates calling for more supervised inhalation sites have previously said the rules for setting up sites are overly complicated at a time when the province is facing an overdose crisis.

More than 15,000 people have died of overdoses since the public health emergency was declared in B.C. in April 2016.

Kate Salters, a senior researcher at the centre, said they worked with mechanical and chemical engineers to make sure the site is up to code and abidies by the highest standard of occupational health and safety.

“This is just another tool in our tool box to make sure that we’re offering life-saving services to those who are using drugs,” she said.

Montaner acknowledged the process to get the site up and running took “an inordinate amount of time,” but said the centre worked hard to follow all regulations.

“We feel that doing this right, with appropriate scientific background, in a medically supervised environment, etc, etc, allows us to derive the data that ultimately will be sufficiently convincing for not just our leaders, but also the leaders across the country and across the world, to embrace the strategies that we are trying to develop.” he said.

Montaner said building the facility was possible thanks to a single $4-million donation from a longtime supporter.

Construction finished with less than a week before the launch of the next provincial election campaign and within a year of the next federal election.

Montaner said he is concerned about “some of the things that have been said publicly by some of the political leaders in the province and in the country.”

“We want to bring awareness to the people that this is a serious undertaking. This is a very massive investment, and we need to protect it for the benefit of people who are unfortunately drug dependent.” he said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024.

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