Dear City and Parks Members:
As previously communicated, in response to the City’s May 28, 2025 announcement that they would be increasing the minimum in-office days from one to three per week, the union filed a policy grievance. While we have been working through the grievance process, we have continued to hear from many of you about your personal circumstances and the great challenges that this reduction in remote work will pose for you and your families. We heard and appreciated all that you shared with us.
At each step of the grievance process, we articulated all of the impacts to our members and beyond, including: drastically increased commuting time and expense and the toll this takes on families and work-life balance; challenges securing appropriate childcare and its cost; health concerns for many who will now have to crowd onto transit and into tight office spaces; climate impacts; as well as several other personal and practical implications, such as impacts to recruitment and retention.
The only legal argument we had to make, however, was that from our perspective, the City had failed to follow proper procedure in the way they made the All Staff announcement of the coming change, providing a four-month window within which staff would have their in-office days updated to the new minimum of three. Naming this four-month transition period, but not providing notice to individuals of when their in-office minimum would change, meant that many members were caught off-guard when informed the change would affect them as of September 1, 2025. This was also a contravention of the Flexible Workbooks, signed by members and management, and approved by the union.
The Workbooks allow any party to those agreements (employee or employer) to CANCEL the flexible work arrangement with 30-days’ notice. They do not allow the employer to impose a unilateral change. What this means practically, is the employer could have simply given 30-days’ notice to individual work groups that they would cancel the current Workbooks and then give the option to either sign a new Workbook with the updated minimum or return to working fully in-office.
In our discussions with the City, they made it very clear that they were intent on setting the new minimum and that they would proceed in making this change.
We were, however, able to negotiate a staged approach that slows the transition and provides clear, established timelines so everyone knows what to expect when and has some lead time to plan for the change.
In short, effective November 17, 2025, all employees will be required to be at a minimum of two days per week at a City worksite; and effective January 1, 2026, all employees will be required to be at a minimum of three days per week at a City worksite. Those who have already had the three-day minimum imposed will revert to their previous flexible work arrangement and will then be subject to the above transition schedule. Despite this staged approach, the parties agreed that only one new Workbook would be required for the final stage.
We recognize this may be unwelcome news to many of you, but we do believe this was the best possible outcome, given the absolute discretion the employer has with respect to an in-office minimum and their right to simply cancel flexible work arrangements altogether. We are glad to at least have achieved a slower pace of change and certainty of timing, though again, we appreciate the hardships this change will cause.
In solidarity,
Warren Williams
President