Imagine working from home. Sounds nice, right? But for those of us who work at an office, there are certain things we just take for granted: the employer pays for a desk for us to work on, for a chair for us to sit on, for the electricity to run our computers, and for basic office supplies.
But for some of our members who have no choice but to work from home, getting the basic necessities covered by the employer can be challenging.
“We get an allocation of $30 per month – and that’s only when we have sufficient hours to qualify,” said Géraldine Fortin, a member of the bargaining team for field employees at Statistical Survey Operations.
“Thirty dollars a month, that only covers your basic phone service,” said Fortin.
For field interviewers, a land line is a job requirement.
“The desk I work on, I bought it. The chair I use, I bought it,” said Fortin. “And whether or not it’s ergonomic, the employer doesn’t care.”
She also forked over some of her own dough to furnish her office with a bulletin board, shelves and a locking filing cabinet.
Fortin uses her daughter’s old room as an office. She said her closets don’t belong to her anymore – they’ve been transformed into storage for the employer’s paraphernalia.
“I’m always sending stuff back to the employer,” said Fortin. “But that closet is always full.”
Indeed, Fortin said she often gets huge packages from her employer – sometimes up to five boxes the size of laundry hampers!
It’s important to remember that field interviewers’ hours are precarious, which makes it even harder to budget for the things the employer should be paying for in the first place. According to Fortin, some interviewers simply can’t afford the basic office essentials… so they work from their bed or at the dining room table.
Needless to say, there are a lot of things that need fixing in this particular round of negotiations.
Turning frustration into art
For Suzanne Bélanger, chief steward of Local 10040, all that clutter invading her home turned into a chance to express herself.
“Statistics Canada sends us a lot of paperwork and a lot of envelopes,” said Bélanger. “Yes, we can put that in the recycling – but I thought, there ought to be something I can do with this.”
“All that paper: I find it insane. So at one point I had the idea of making a basket.”
She got to work, crafting intricate baskets out of used envelopes. The final product is a brilliant work of conceptual art; but Bélanger says that she really only planned to use the basket to store supplies in her home office – creating order, using something that previously cluttered her home.
“I’m very crafty, you know,” said Bélanger, who added the baskets were just something she was doing to occupy her evenings.
And so far, the baskets have been a huge smash with her fellow union activists.
“If it can help inspire a different vision of things we can do to call attention to our working conditions… that would be a great thing!”
