One overlooked clause just derailed WorkSafeBC's office comeback plan
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.
How a pandemic habit turned into a bargaining battle
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 unilaterally impose. Okay."
The language they signed drew a hard line. WorkSafeBC could unilaterally "suspend or cancel" an arrangement, but only for just cause, a performance improvement plan, probation, or operational requirements with 45 days' notice. Any alteration required mutual agreement between manager and employee, at any time.
A companywide email collides with a signed clause
About two years later, on November 21, 2024, WorkSafeBC emailed every employee announcing sweeping change, saying arrangements were "no longer meeting the needs and goals we have, of fostering greater in-person connection and collaboration between colleagues, in order to fulfill our mandate effectively and meet business outcomes and stakeholder expectations." Staff were sorted into five "personas," most attending one to three days a week.
The union grieved on May 14, 2025: "LOU B22 does not allow the Employer to unilaterally alter an employee's WAH arrangement. Pursuant to clause 21 of LOU B22, WAH arrangements may be altered through mutual agreement of the manager and employee at the time." WorkSafeBC pressed ahead, and employees began attending office weekly by assigned persona starting July 2, 2025.
WorkSafeBC argued that once it had grounds to cancel an arrangement, management rights let it impose a new one on any terms, and that the union's silence after three smaller unilateral changes signaled tacit approval.
Why the missing word ‘alter’ decided the case
Arbitrator Hassan disagreed. He found the bargaining history showed the union had deliberately kept the word "alter" out of the employer's unilateral powers, rejecting a proposal to add it, and finding nothing showed the union ever agreed to hand that power back. The ruling turned on that bargained language, not on WorkSafeBC's broader policies or its general right to direct where staff work.
He also rejected the estoppel argument, finding WorkSafeBC had not relied on anything the union said or did, since it believed it was acting under its own Remote Work Policy and management rights, not LOU B22.
"The Employer's implementation of its hybrid work model in 2025 was in breach of LOU B22," Hassan wrote in upholding the grievance. The ruling sets no remedy yet. Hassan sent the parties to work out next steps through discussion and, failing that, mediation-arbitration, retaining jurisdiction over any remedy.
