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Ontario Premier Doug Ford has done what too many timid CEOs refuse to do: he ordered the province’s 60,000 public servants back to the office. Four days a week. No excuses.

Predictably, the public sector unions are howling. But the law — and common sense — is on Ford’s side.

The myth of permanent remote work

Remote work was never a contractual right. It was a temporary COVID-19 emergency measure that became an accommodation that employees have clung to as though it were enshrined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It is not. Unless your contract explicitly guarantees remote work, your employer can recall you. Period.

Employees talk about “work-life balance” and “autonomy.” Courts talk about contracts. And unless your contract says otherwise, the company office is your workplace.

Why constructive dismissal doesn’t apply

Constructive dismissal arises when an employer unilaterally changes a fundamental term of employment. But returning employees to the office is not a “change.” It is a restoration of the original deal.

Contrast that with the case of Byrd v. Welcome Home Children’s Residence Inc., in which an employer let an employee work from Europe for over a year and then suddenly told her to return or quit. The court rightly ruled that remote work had, by then, become a term of her employment.

Ford’s call — like any employer’s well-communicated policy — is the opposite. It’s not a capricious ultimatum. It’s a general rule, applied across the board,...

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