ElementTree namespace dictionary not working with find() or findall()

I'm stumped with how to do the ElementTree namespace dictionary and subsequent find() and findall() calls using the documented sytnax:

A better way to search the namespaced XML example is to create a dictionary with your own prefixes and use those in the search functions:

ns = {'real_person': 'http://people.example.com',
  'role': 'http://characters.example.com'}

for actor in root.findall('real_person:actor', ns):
    name = actor.find('real_person:name', ns)
    print(name.text)
    for char in actor.findall('role:character', ns):
        print(' |-->', char.text)

The issue i'm having is if i try to use the syntax noted in that doc, by passing the "ns" dictionary as a 2nd argument in find() or findall(), i get an empty list. If I type out the full namespace without passing the 2nd argument, it returns all of the expected elements.

I've defined my namespace dictionary as such:

ns = {'ws':'{urn:com.workday/workersync}'}

And here is the ElementTree and root setup:

xmlparser = ET.parse(xmlfile)
xmlroot = xmlparser.getroot()

Here is what i get when i try to use the dictionary shortcut syntax noted in the docs:

>>> xmlroot.findall('ws:Worker', ns)
[]

Just an empty list... Here is what i get if type out the namespace in the call:

xmlroot.findall('{urn:com.workday/workersync}Worker')
[<Element '{urn:com.workday/workersync}Worker' at 0x03220A78>, <Element'{urn:com.workday/workersync}Worker' at 0x0322D8C0>]

That returns the expected 2 elements in my sample file.

Here is what the top of my sample file looks like for reference:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<ws:Worker_Sync xmlns:ws="urn:com.workday/workersync" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
    <ws:Header>
        <ws:Version>34.0</ws:Version>
        <ws:Prior_Entry_Time>2020-07-04T21:40:25.822-07:00</ws:Prior_Entry_Time>
        <ws:Current_Entry_Time>2020-07-04T22:03:47.458-07:00</ws:Current_Entry_Time>
        <ws:Prior_Effective_Time>2020-07-04T00:00:00.000-07:00</ws:Prior_Effective_Time>
        <ws:Current_Effective_Time>2020-07-05T00:00:00.000-07:00</ws:Current_Effective_Time>
        <ws:Full_File>true</ws:Full_File>
        <ws:Document_Retention_Policy>30</ws:Document_Retention_Policy>
        <ws:Worker_Count>2</ws:Worker_Count>
    </ws:Header>
    <ws:Worker>
         *<snipped rest of XML data>*

The snipped XML data contains 2 <ws:Worker> elements with many subchildren under them.

I've been messing with this for longer than i'd care to admit. I feel like I'm missing something incredibly obvious, as to my eyes, my code looks like every example i've found online and the example code on the docs.

Please help!