WorkSafeBC ordered roughly 3,440 employees back into the office on a fixed weekly schedule. An arbitrator just ruled that move broke the collective agreement it negotiated with its own union less than three years earlier.
In a decision dated July 27, 2026, arbitrator J. Najeeb Hassan upheld a grievance filed by the Compensation Employees' Union on behalf of WorkSafeBC's roughly 3,440 bargaining unit employees, ruling the employer's 2025 hybrid work model breached Letter of Understanding B22 (LOU B22), the collective agreement clause governing work-from-home arrangements.
Before COVID-19, work-from-home at WorkSafeBC was a narrow privilege. Under the 2019-2022 version of LOU B22, just over 200 employees were approved to work from home, capped at 36.25 hours a month. That changed within days of the pandemic being declared. By March 27, 2020, roughly 90 per cent of the bargaining unit was working fully remotely, and WorkSafeBC spent the next two years building a Hybrid Model, formalized through a Remote Work Policy introduced December 29, 2021.
When the two sides bargained a new collective agreement in fall 2022, work-from-home rules became one of the toughest issues at the table. The employer wanted the power to "alter" arrangements at will. The union refused, and bargaining notes show its chief of labour relations telling the employer's negotiator: "Ah, I see. Operational requirements, just cause, then you will...
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