Letter: Little sympathy for government employees on strike demanding right to work from home

I’m having a tough time garnering any sympathy for the striking government workers.

I’m a retired Union member of the Steelworkers and know a bit about striking and negotiating. When I retired, my pension was calculated so that I was deducted for my time spent on strike. It turned out I spent 8 months of my 33 years on strike at Cominco in Trail. We never had the security of knowing we’d be legislated back to work as government workers are. This is just a holiday for some of them and I’m sure they can manage to get by just fine for a while.

There are no reports of what the government workers have in their strike fund. Must be a lot as they rarely go out. I ended up getting $10 a week and groceries back in the 1980s.

Them asking to be able to work from home is a dream and I don’t believe is a good idea. If I had a company, I’d want my employees visible to see that they are working and not at home doing laundry, mowing the lawn or taking care of their kids while being paid to do a job. They have good pensions and wages.

Working from home was never a big deal of before Covid, and it should be buried as an idea along with Covid. You cannot trust that all those working from home will just work and not divert their actions. All this striking is only saving the government money, and they will force (mandate) a wage package on them that is consistent with other negotiated deals this year.

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Bob White,

Salmon Arm

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