There has been no other time in history, except perhaps during the World War II, that the general public has had to rely so heavily on government services in both Canada and the U.S. Yet, there are still people who will complain about public servants who are either working or off work due to COVID-19 and are continuing to receive their pay cheques. However, reports are now coming out concerning the coronavirus risks associated with public sector employees providing front line services. One recent Washington Post article noted that to date about 4,000 federal employees reported that they contracted the coronavirus at work — and 60 have died. The article refers to the work in particular of the Homeland Security, Justice, the U.S. Postal Service, the Bureau of Prisons, the Defence Department and Veterans Affairs. It also specified that Customs and Border Protection had a total of 1,590 cases among its 60,000 employees and eight deaths, while the 64,000-employee Transportation Security Administration recorded 1,315 cases and six deaths.
In Canada, with naturally a much smaller federal government work force (about 380,000), there were 455 reported cases of coronavirus disease as of July 22, 2020. Many of the reported cases can be attributed to front-line work in federal agencies such as the Canada Border Services Agency, the Correctional Service of Canada, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the Canadian Transportation Agency. The numbers do not include the activities of Canada Post which is a separate crown corporation. It appears that no deaths were attributed as a result of these reported cases. With the gradual reopening of Service Canada Centres which provide the public with access to specific federal programs, the number of coronavirus-related cases could very well increase among federal workers, even with the additional precautions put in place.
In both countries, some federal employees were in a position to work from home following the closure of various federal offices and outlet services. In Canada, this is particularly true for certain key agencies such as the Revenue Canada Agency and Employment and Social Development Canada which provide pandemic-related assistance to the unemployed and businesses affected by the pandemic lockdown. In some cases, federal employees — roughly about one in four workers —were unable for various justifiable reasons to do their work from home or had family circumstances preventing them from doing their normal jobs. For this reason, the federal government offered them ‘extended paid leave’ which amounted to $439 million in the first eleven weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic. As usual, there has been some public outcry from bodies such as right-wing Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
What those complaining forget is that in Canada, for example, seventy-five percent of federal public servants are still working in front-line operations or at home to provide much needed services to Canadians. As in the U.S., many government workers are actually placing themselves in situations where exposure to COVID-19 is a real risk. They are found in law enforcement, in food inspection, the postal service, at the borders, at airports and ports, in veterans’ hospitals/care facilities, and in the provision of consulate services to citizens abroad. Interestingly, in both countries, concerns have been raised over the growing recalls of government employees from telework or leave even as infections and deaths are spiking in some regions.
It’s time that federal government workers be recognized for the many essential front-line services that they are providing during this pandemic, often at personal risks to their safety and health.
FROLITICKS 