About one in six Ontario government employees has formally requested to work from home in the wake of Premier Doug Ford’s edict for a full-time return to the office, the Star has learned.

With Ford ordering civil servants back to their desks five days a week after Jan. 5, the Treasury Board Secretariat said it has been so inundated with “remote work alternative work arrangement (AWA)” requests that it cannot process them all.

With unions warning their collective bargaining rights are being violated by the government’s decree, Queen’s Park is scrambling to deal with the situation.

“As you are aware, the transition to a five-day per week in-office standard has resulted in a high volume of AWA requests across the OPS,” advised the secretariat in an internal email sent Monday to Ontario pub

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