How the massive fed workers strike will set the tone for Canada’s labour market and economy

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Jordan Heath Rawlings Every big strike starts with enthusiasm. It’s hard to get thousands of people to the picket lines without it. Morale is high as Canada’s largest federal public sector union goes on strike here on Elgan Street, just a stones throw away from parliament. Striking workers underline, this isn’t just about a wage increase, but being able to afford the rising cost of living in Canada. So when tens of thousands of federal workers, one of the largest strikes in our nation’s history took to those lines last week, it remained to be seen who, if anyone would blink after all, all of these employees perform duties that quite literally keep the lights on in this country. From administrative efforts to public safety, consumer advocacy, revenue expenditures, and on and on. If you want a passport or a pension or a safe train trip, there are people on the picket lines who help you get that done. But the government, despite that, hasn’t blinked yet and neither have the unions. In fact, as this week begins, they are planning to up their efforts by moving picket lines to where they’ll be even more noticeable. So now as we approach a full week of the federal worker strike, we’ll see exactly where the gears begin to grind, where Canadians will notice the lack of a function in government. Okay. Which departments will be impacted, which are essential? What is this fight over anyway? And is any progress being made? Or will the business of the country slowly but surely start to come to a halt?I’m Jordan Heath-Rawlings. This is the big story. Cormack McSweeney is the Parliament Hill reporter for City News. He often joins us to explain what’s going on in the halls of power. Hello, Cormack.

Cormac Mac Sweeney Hello.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Why don’t, uh, you start with this when we say it’s a federal worker strike. What agencies does that cover? Like how many people is this, how big is this strike?

Cormac Mac Sweeney Yeah, it’s, it’s not every federal worker across the board. There are actually four specific bargaining units within, um, the Treasury board, and then there’s also the Canada Revenue Agency. So I’ll kind of break that down. There are 155 thousand employees impacted by this strike, although some of them are still considered essential workers, so they’re not allowed to walk off the job even though they remain in a legal strike position. It’s impacting a lot of departments across the board, um, because since they’re treasury board employees, it’s the job position that is going on strike, not the department. And therefore you have them impacting a wide range of, of departments, and many services are facing challenges as a result of that. So to break it down even further, the biggest bargaining unit within the Public Service Alliance of Canada that is on strike right now is nearly 100,000 employees from what’s called the PA Group, the Program Administration Group. This includes like information services, communication, secretarial services.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Hmm.

Cormac Mac Sweeney Office equipment, administrative services, clerical functions, data processing, all of that. And then there are are three other smaller, uh, bargaining units, uh, and groups within the P S A C. So you have things like, uh, people responsible for the operations of federal buildings like firefighters, trade workers, cooks. Ships crews, even light keepers from lighthouses. Um, there are technical services, uh, like engineering and scientific support, technical inspection, and then you even have, you know, people involved in federal education, education support and library services. And then the big one that I think a lot of, has got a lot of attention, is the 35,000 employees with the Canada Revenue Agency. They’re sort of in a separate bargaining unit. From those other groups. Uh, and they’re having their own separate negotiations, but they’re also on strike impacting the Canada Revenue Agency as a whole. So a lot of agencies and, and, and, uh, different job titles impacted by this. Um, and it’s having a wide range of impacts so far, but it’s not as if, you know, one whole department is going down.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Mm-hmm.

Cormac Mac Sweeney There are ways to sort of have contingencies, but it’s definitely having an impact on Canadians.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings How long has this situation been brewing for and and what was the final straw, so to speak?

Cormac Mac Sweeney Oh, this, this has been brewing for some time. It’s been like at least two years in the making when their contract last expired and there were negotiations back and forth. Um, at one point the union even walked away from the bargaining table for months. Not happy with the offer they were seeing from the feds or the lack of movement from the feds. They came back, uh, weeks or months ago leading up to this job action and, and started going back to the table. I know some in government weren’t really happy with the rhetoric they were hearing from the union, uh, when it came back to the table, uh, and the demands they were giving, uh, because they were like, well, they walked away from us. But nonetheless, both sides did get back at it. But there were tensions. Um, you know, they weren’t coming to any sort of, big progress on the big issues, uh, that they were facing at the bargaining table. And so the union held a strike vote, uh, earlier this year. And despite some questions about the turnout and some irregularities, a strike mandate was given. And the P S A C uh, waited several days before actually walking off the job. During that time while there were negotiations, there were people with the union who were tweeting about all the preparations they had to, to get a strike underway, organizing and, and getting that all in shape.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Right.

Cormac Mac Sweeney So they finally walked off the job last week and, and since then there has still been a lot of tensions between the two sides in this.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings When you mention, uh, low turnout and irregularities, just quickly, what do you mean by that?

Cormac Mac Sweeney From the start when they were talking about this job action, there were questions about the strike vote. The union decided to hold it eight days earlier, uh, than, uh, they had originally said they would. And there were demands that people had to show up in person to cast a ballot rather than, you know, doing it from home or, or, or via online. And, and that raised some questions. And one of the union members actually filed a complaint with one of the, uh, federal public service labor boards. Um, and we only found out about these details because of that complaint. Uh, because the union didn’t actually release the hard numbers of how many people actually went to cast a ballot and what the actual percentage of that vote was. They just said that they had an overwhelming majority of their members who said they were prepared to strike. I believe those were the exact words, uh, that, uh, Chris Elwood, the head of the P S A C had used. And then when we got these details late last week, We found out that actually there’s only about a third of the entire union members actually showed up to cast, uh, their ballots for this strike vote. And of that third it was 80% who said they wanted to go on strike. So it is a, a small minority of the union members who actually showed up. To, uh, to cast a ballot in favour of a strike. And this impacted over 120,000 employees. I think the number was something like 42,000 employees who actually, uh, did cast a ballot. Now, the P S A C has come back a and responded to the irregularities and the issues around, uh, the voting periods, and they said, look, We have issues with voter turnout just as governments do. When Canadians head to the polls during an election mm-hmm. And you get low voter turnout, it still gives people the mandate we offered, uh, for people to come out and have their voices heard.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Right.

Cormac Mac Sweeney Those that did, got to choose where we went with this. And, uh, they said, you know, the proof is in the pudding on the picket lines. Uh, they still have around 100,000 members who are on the picket lines right now. They wouldn’t be there if they didn’t want this strike.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings I know some places, uh, as you mentioned like R C M P or Health Canada, uh, can be essential and they’ll continue to operate, but what isn’t, and where are Canadians most likely to kind of come face to face with the reality of this?

Cormac Mac Sweeney Yeah, I think there’s like, 46,000 employees who are considered essential and, um, they are making sure that certain services continue as a result of this. Um, there are a lot of different, uh, departments that are impacted by this. The one that people are focusing on a lot right now. Well, there are two, I guess. Canada Revenue Agency. Uh, you know, they’re warning that there may be delays in processing income tax and benefit returns, and that’s raising a lot of questions, right, uh, about the tax filing season. Um, you’ve got passports, that’s another big one. A lot of people with the weather warming up are looking to take vacations, and yet the processing of passports has basically come to a halt. There are no passport applications being processed unless you are an emergency. Passport. And this is just after passports had finally, I guess, caught up to the incredible backlog that we’d spoken about before.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Yes.

Cormac Mac Sweeney And you know, there were, there are questions right now about whether we’re gonna have another, uh, backlog as a result of all of this. The minister insists that the measures they took to deal with that first backlog will still help make sure that we don’t really have a serious backlog this time around. Okay. But nonetheless, Um, you’re, you’re faced with a situation right now where unless you’re in emergency situation, and that’s dictated by legislation, what an emergency situation is, and that’s something like, you know, maybe your, your father might be dying in a different country.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Mm-hmm.

Cormac Mac Sweeney And you need your passport to go see your loved one. Uh, or you know, you all of a sudden need to travel for work and you need to go there. Uh, and, and so you have to get that passport. There are limited narrow avenues in which you can get it. Your family tripped Disneyland. If you don’t have your passports for your family and it’s coming up here soon, I, you know, you might be left outta luck. That’s just the unfortunate situation. And the minister said, I, I don’t wanna cancel people’s vacations as a result of this passport issue, but it’s kind of out of my hands. We can’t process these things at the moment. Um, so those are the two big ones that people are focusing on at the moment. Uh, you know, there were concerns about border crossings as well. Uh, the Canada Border Service Agency just before the strike. Sent out a release saying, look, our officers are not on strike. The people who actually do all the hard work and do the screening at the front lines, they’re gonna be on the job. You know, there’s, there might be some processing issues on the back end of us, but we are still going to make sure that the flow of people and goods remains uh maintained as, as it always does, you know, you have service Canada centers that might be facing issues around employment insurance, social insurance, the pension plan, old age security. That’s mainly on new applications. Uh, but then immigration as well is another big one.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Hmm.

Cormac Mac Sweeney You know, immigration applications right now really can’t be, again, unless you’re in an emergency situation. Are not being processed. And, and that’s a big thing, especially when Canada’s looking to each year moving forward, gradually increase the record number of immigrants we’re already accepting in our country. So I have to ask you about, uh, the really big one.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings You mentioned the c r a, uh, we are like one week away from the tax filing deadline, right? So was this, uh, was this timed for maximum impact here and. What should Canadians know? Do we still have to file? Uh, by May 1st? Are there still people available to help with questions or like what?

Cormac Mac Sweeney This is a critical time. The answer to whether you still need to file your taxes. Yes. File your taxes. The deadline, as far as we know, is not changing despite this job action. Uh, the Canada Revenue Agency actually sent out a release saying, you know, there are no plans to extend the tax filing deadlines and the CRA will continue to accept all tax returns even though. You know, some rebate checks may be delayed and there may be some issues around that. Uh, but they say, uh, you know, those that are filed digitally, uh, which represent the vast majority of returns at the moment, will largely be processed automatically by their systems without any delay.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Hmm.

Cormac Mac Sweeney I will say a lot of unions tend to try and time their job action to have maximum impact. I mean, that’s the point of a strike, right, is to try and put pressure on the other side. I will say in terms of the cra as well, it’s not just, you know, individuals who are concerned about, uh, their tax filing and, and whether or not things, uh, will work out okay, or if they’ll get the rebate checks quick enough. There are a lot of businesses who are concerned about this as well, and, and the reason for that is that, you know, if you’re filing taxes for a business, it’s much more intricate than, you know, someone’s personal income tax return where they get their T4 slip and just fill in all the blanks on, on an easy to follow guide that they, they got online and then just click submit. You know, there are a lot of businesses who are in constant contact with the c r a, trying to work out different tax issues, or they might have questions, what if I do this? What if I do that? Especially for people who may be starting their own business and not used to doing this sort of stuff. Yeah. And so they often have to, uh, negotiate or, or talk with the c r a, about all, all of these things. And their important questions might not really be answered at this point. And so, uh, the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses worried that a lot of businesses may technically fill their taxes out wrong and be penalized as a result, simply because they couldn’t get their questions answered. And they’re also worried about things like employment insurance and immigration because it plays a major role for a lot of businesses when it comes to firing and hiring. Uh, it could affect, um, you know, what they plan to do if they can’t get that employee in that they were hoping to hire from abroad. Or if, you know, they were thinking about letting go some people, uh, knowing that they won’t have access to employment insurance right away may factor into that. And so there are a lot of different things to think about when it comes to the C R A shutdown and, and that is going to have a big impact.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings So now that we’ve seen this strike, uh, head towards a full week, this is around the time, and maybe this is just misestimating, but that people start to notice when, you know, the gears start to gum up and things that were maybe coasting for a few days, uh, all of a sudden start to get stuck. Are we seeing that kind of stuff on the ground? Have you heard that kind of story yet? Um, and after that, just how have the negotiations been going?

Cormac Mac Sweeney Well, uh, yes. I think from day one we were starting to see it. I know some of our colleagues in Toronto were at a passport office on the first day of the strike, and there were people showing up saying, oh man, I need I, I need my passport for my family vacation or this trip I’m going on. And they didn’t realize that they were gonna be impacted by this strike. And so we’re already seeing that. Of course, you know, I mentioned earlier the minister had warned about vacations being canceled and things like that because they can’t get passports processed right now. The applications for them, um, immigration obviously another issue that’s happening where they’re not processing a lot of the immigration applications that are coming in. Uh, so people are not coming into our country. I think the biggest fear is not this first week, even though you’re right. You know, generally speaking, it, it starts to really ramp up after these points. But as this drags on even longer, it could have a bigger, impact for our economy, a bigger impact on people’s lives. And the closer we get to busier travel seasons and, uh, you know, the tax filing deadline, the more pressure is going to be put on the government and the union to, to come up with some sort of solution here.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Mm-hmm.

Cormac Mac Sweeney Uh, where the two sides stand on this. It doesn’t appear that they’re very close, but we’re getting some really mixed messages from either side. But this is kind of to be understood in any negotiation like this, things can get pretty messy.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Mm-hmm.

Cormac Mac Sweeney In this negotiation, there have been two clear issues that have been sticking points for both sides. One is pay and the other one is remote work. The union hasn’t really budged from its position from, I think even. One or two years ago yet on what it’s looking for, it wants 13.5% in terms of pay increases over a three year period. I think it’s 4.5 each year. The feds, however, have counter offered, uh, but they’ve, they’ve slowly risen. Their counter offer last year it was 8% over four years was essentially what they were looking for. Uh, but then they’ve slimed that down to three years and the offer now isn’t, 9%, which averages about 3%, but it’s, it’s cut up a little bit differently where the first year is 1.5% than the next year is higher at 4.5%. But work from home is also a big issue, uh, where a lot of public servants are saying they don’t want to be forced back into the office as the government looks to try and get more bodies back into the office, the government says you have to be working at least three days a week in the office. That’s what they’re looking for from federal employees, of course, through the pandemic. Everyone was doing their jobs basically from their homes, and a lot of public servants say, if I can do this from my home, why would I want to go into the office? Why do I wanna deal with the commute? Why do I want to go through all of the issues just to try and make it into the office when everything I can do, I can do it from my house. It’s not as simple as that. You know, from an employer’s point of view, there’s a lot of technology involved to make sure that um, you know, people can do their jobs. Not every federal public employee can do their jobs from home. You know, we talked about cooks and, uh, ships crew.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Sure.

Cormac Mac Sweeney Obviously they can’t work from home on this. Um, so some of the bargaining units, it’s not as big of an issue, but others, like especially the largest bargaining group here, which is like a lot of administrative services. There are a lot of people there who think they can do their jobs. From their house, and this could have impacts for the grander economy because these are debates that a lot of employers are having right now about whether they, you know, allow more remote access or whether they decide to get more workers back on the job. And the pay is a big thing too because the union’s pushing for pay increases that reflect inflation. And they’ve been, you know, pointing to the inflation crisis. But the feds have countered saying, look, inflation is going down. We’ve hit our peak. Hmm. Why would we give you x amount of money? 13.5% is what they’re asking for over the next three years when inflation could stable off, uh, and, and go to 2% by the end of this year. So, they don’t want to be locked into these higher than average inflation targets, and the union says, no, we need this bump in pay, and also we’ve been working on the old contract for so long, we deserve this bump up. So, you know, the two sides are, don’t really seem close to a deal right now. This past weekend, there was a lot of back and forth, a lot of anger. The union said that they were fed up, the government countered saying we were gonna give you a new offer, and then you walked away and went to the TV cameras and we’re not happy about that. You’re just grandstanding on all this. So, uh, really there’s a lot of arguments, but I think one minister said, um, just earlier, before we recorded this, that, technically in negotiations, you’re gonna see this stuff, especially when people are on, are on strike. There’s gonna be a lot of tensions and sometimes the worst tensions come right before a deal. So whether this is the worst yet or whether we’re gonna see it, ramp up remains to be seen.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings You mentioned, uh, our economy in general a couple times in that last answer, and I wanna ask you a little bit more about that. How could this strike impact the wider economy and is it just because there’s like 150,000 people on strike that, it’s kind of precedent setting for, you know, labor relations to come across the country?

Cormac Mac Sweeney Well, that’s the big thing, right? Like this is a huge union with a large employee base doing negotiations with the federal government and. A lot of unions, and I’ve, I even spoke with some labor lawyers who say they’re keeping a very close eye on the negotiations because this will impact how other negotiations move in the in the future. Now, already you’ve heard the stories of certain companies deciding we’re just gonna do remote work only, or we’re gonna give our employees a bunch of remote work time. But when it comes to unions, I mean, this is a huge union that’s looking to have work from home enshrined.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Hmm.

Cormac Mac Sweeney In its collective bargaining agreement, which we haven’t really seen before. It’s not just the federal government, I mean provincial governments, you might see this pop up in negotiations. Uh, you might see this in municipal situations as well. And then companies with large union bases will also be facing the same fight. If the government can hold wages, let’s say to on average about 3% per year in this debate with the union, then that’s going to be sort of the, the standard that’s gonna be set in this post. Pandemic lockdown work world that we’re gonna be entering, uh, over the months and years ahead. The work from home aspect, the pay aspect, those are two big issues that I think all workers across the country are sort of facing right now. And, and questions are being raised both at, at the employer and worker level. And it could work into, uh, individual contract negotiations with workers if they’re not unionized, if they get a new job. So this could have wide ranging impacts. You know, that could change the way we see our workplace in the future. Uh, the union has already said very clearly, they know that other unions will be fighting the same fight they are, and they don’t want to back down from that so that they can set that precedent.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings So the last question I wanna ask you then is, how’s all this playing politically? Obviously, um, the liberals are on the side of the government, but what about the N D P and in particular, the conservatives?

Cormac Mac Sweeney Because I’m kind of fascinated about where they land on this. Yeah. There are a couple of parties here who are in difficult positions. I mean, the liberals obviously as the government, they say they’re, they have workers’ backs and they will respect the, the worker’s right to strike. However, you know, previously they have used back to work legislation, so that’s not off the table in this one, and they’re not, counting it out, either they’re not ruling it out as an option moving forward. The NDP obviously has always been on the side of workers. The block Quebecois as well has traditionally leaned a lot on union support in Quebec. Obviously more focused on Quebec than anything else, but nonetheless, uh, the conservatives are the real interesting party here because, Pierre Poilievre has started to make some inroads with a lot of blue collar workers and union members, and he’s trying to cultivate that. He’s, he wants to try and make some inroads in, in certain ridings, where traditionally the union base would vote maybe N D P, and, and we could see a fight in the next election whenever it happens, uh, for some NDP seats between the conservatives and the ndp, however, the conservatives have traditionally been also very pro-business, and during the Harper government years, uh, Stephen Harper wasn’t shy about using back to work legislation and taking a strong hand with unions, forcing workers back on the job. Uh, so it’s a very interesting position for Pierre Poilievre in the conservatives because on one hand they’re trying to cultivate this union blue collar base that they hope to keep, and yet they also want to be pro business and keep those, uh, groups on their sides. So it’s interesting to see how they’re gonna play this. Initially they were asked like, are you gonna support back to work legislation if this strike drags on? Uh, one conservative senator said he did if it, if it drags on, but that’s not really the official line from the party as it comes to the House of Commons and the MPs who were sitting there and what we heard was this is Trudeau’s fault. Uh, the Prime Minister has bungled this situation and his government has made a mess of things, and we’re only stuck here because of the Prime Minister. That’s what they’re saying, but they’re not really touching the back to work legislation issue at all. They’re not jumping on that as, you know, maybe we would’ve expected them to.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Right.

Cormac Mac Sweeney And so it’s a very unique position and interesting position for the conservatives right now, and it’ll be interesting to see moving forward if this does drag on and we do get back to work legislation that’s gonna force the conservatives to pick a side on this. And the other big question about that, the NDP has already said they’re not gonna support back to work legislation, even if it’s a confidence motion despite their supply and confidence deal with the Trudeau liberals. You don’t think the block Quebec would support that either? So that puts the fate of the government, potentially in the hands of the conservatives, in which side they want to choose back to work legislation or pro-union. That’s, you know, making a lot of assumptions about where this might head. We could have a deal and those questions might not be asked whatsoever, but it’s gonna be interesting to see how this play out in the weeks ahead. And if it doesn’t end soon, we’ll probably speak to you about it again.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Thanks, Cormack as always for explaining this.

Cormac Mac Sweeney Anytime.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Cormack Mc Sweeney, parliament Hill reporter for City News. That was the big story. For more, you can head to the big story podcast.ca. You can find us on Twitter at the Big story fpn, and you can email us hello at the big story podcast.ca. This podcast is available wherever you prefer to get it, and if you wanna send it to a friend, we’d love your endorsement. Thanks for listening. I’m Jordan Heath-Rawlings. We’ll talk tomorrow.