Federal officials are demanding historic wage increases under threat of a strike as the Trudeau administration signals it must tighten its belts to face a difficult economic environment.
The Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), the largest of the 17 public service unions, will hold strike votes among its 240,000 members next week.
The first to decide will be the 35,000 very strategic employees of the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA).
Up to 47%
Those tens of thousands of union members are demanding a 30% pay rise, while 120,000 other alliance members, including 22,000 in Quebec, are demanding a 4.5% annual increase for three years, for a total of 13.5% from 2021 to 2023.
Her employer, the Treasury Board, instead proposes an average pay rise of 2.06% over four years for the period 2021-2025. It calculates that PSAC’s salary and fringe benefits requirements represent an increase of up to 47% over three years and would cost the government $9.3 billion over three years.
The arbitrator, the Federation for Industrial Relations and Employment’s Public Interest Commission (PIC), finds the union’s demands “exceed what is reasonable” and urges both parties to return to the negotiating table.
Photo provided by PSAC
Yvon Barrier
Leader of the PSAC-Quebec
But the PSAC slammed the door a year ago and has no intention of returning. She dismisses the Treasury Department’s calculations, pointing out that accepting the employer’s offer would equate to an 8% to 10% loss of purchasing power amid runaway inflation, which pranced to 6.8% in 2022.
“The Treasury Department’s exaggerated projections are window dressing to make people forget they don’t want to give inflation-adjusted pay rises,” said Yvon Barrière, regional executive vice president of PSAC-Quebec.
strictness?
Labor costs are the federal government’s largest spending item at 60%. They have been growing at a breakneck pace since the Liberals came to power, who are now trying to save $6 billion by conducting a major strategic review of their programs.
In the eyes of the unions, this exercise is tantamount to austerity measures.
For Michael Wernick, Jarislowsky Chair in Public Sector Management at the University of Ottawa and former Privy Council of Canada clerk, the two parties are currently trying to win “the battle of public opinion,” hence the bitter tone of the public exchange .
For him, the Trudeau government will be forced to water down its wine if it is to retain the support of the very unionist NDP in order to remain in power. In return, the unions would also have to soften in order not to alienate the public, which would fuel the mill of the Conservative Party, which advocates a downsizing of the state.
Wernick points out that Ottawa is facing intense pressure to increase health transfers and the defense budget, and as a result will have to make difficult financial decisions in the coming months that the unions cannot stand by.
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