The Decibel - The start of one of the largest strikes in Canadian history

Episode Date: April 20, 2023

The largest public sector union in Canada went on strike on Wednesday after talks broke down with the government over better wages and remote working rules. This strike is expected to cause serious administrative delays for Canadians, from passport processing to filing your taxes. It’s the most recent event in a long string of labour disputes from all over the country in the last two years.The Globe’s future of work reporter Vanmala Subramaniam explains what the significance of this strike is, how we got to this point and the effects it might have on the public, the government and unions going forward.Questions? Comments? Ideas? E-mail us at [e-mail]

Check, check, check. Okay. Excuse me. I'm with The Globe. I'm with The Globe. We're doing a podcast on the strike. I was wondering if I could talk to you for like two minutes. On Wednesday, we sent the Decibel's academic intern, Andrew Hines, to a picket line in Vancouver. Nobody wants to be out here. We want to be at our desks working. Everybody's suffering. So we'd just like the government to giddy up and just get us the settlement that we're asking for. Picketers in Vancouver are members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada.

They're part of more than 150,000 public servant workers currently on strike across the country after their union failed to reach a deal with the government. It's one of the largest national strikes in Canadian history. Trying to bring the government on the table and negotiate, that's basically with regards to hybrid work schedule, work from home, better wages and everything. We try to stay quiet because we work for the Canada Revenue Agency and nobody really likes us, so we try not to raise our voice.

But every now and then we have to be heard and I think it's time. You know, cost of living, especially during the pandemic, has gone up so much. And living in Vancouver especially, you really feel that pinch. I don't want to be driven out of the city that I love and am from. Today, The Globe's future of work reporter, Vanmala Subramaniam, is on the show to tell us what this strike is about and how it might impact services to Canadians. I'm Maina Karaman-Wilms and this is The Decibel from The Globe and Mail. Vamala, thank you so much for joining me today.

Thanks for having me, Manika. So we're speaking on Wednesday around 2 p.m. Things are moving pretty fast here. So I just want to start with who is on strike before we get into some of the details here. So, Vamala, who exactly does this union represent? The Public Service Alliance of Canada is the biggest federal public sector union in the country. So essentially, it represents federal public servants, mostly people who work in Ottawa, but also spread across other provinces. In this particular dispute with these 155,000 workers on strike, they're called the CAR public administration arm of the government. So it's not a particular department or agency.

It could be admin staff spread across, say, the Canada Revenue Agency or Immigration Canada or, you know, passport processing offices. OK. And as you said, these are employees that work in many different locations across the country. So on the ground, what is this strike actually looking like? So the morning of Wednesday, picket lines were set up across, you know, various government buildings in Ottawa and certain federal buildings

in other provinces. And what a strike entails is workers are supposed to do shifts at the picket line. So, you know, the union has told workers spend four hours a day standing at the picket line, showing your support for your union, saying no to, you know, the current wage offer that the government has offered, which we'll get into later. And essentially, that becomes the duty of the worker as opposed to the irregular job. And they're also compensated differently for it. So they'll be on strike pay, which is much less than what they currently get paid for the most part. It's $75 a day capped at $375 a week. Even those who work from home are expected by the union to be on the picket line showing support for the union and other colleagues. Okay, so even if you're a remote worker, you have to be on those picket lines.

Do we know like how many picket lines are established across the country? Yeah, so as of yesterday, the union said 250 picket lines across the country. But I think what's really interesting here is that you have all of the big bargaining units in this union, you know, and really almost all of the members of this union on strike. In many cases, when we see strikes, we see certain bargaining units within unions that go on strike, not what you call a national general strike where you see, you know, everyone at the table with the government sort of pull out and go on strike. So I find that quite fascinating this time around. Yeah, yeah, for sure. All right. So that's the that's the who that's on strike. But let's actually talk about the impact that this

might have on on the lives of Canadians. So so what are some of the changes that we're seeing that that people might notice? Yeah, so essentially, if you are filing your taxes and keep in mind that the tax filing deadline is near, it's May 1st, 35,000 Canada Revenue Agency workers are on the picket lines, they're striking. And so the government has said, if you submit your tax returns by paper, you might expect delays in those returns being processed,

whether or not you owe or you're expecting money. If you file your taxes electronically, however, the government has kind of reassured Canadians that that process is pretty automatic and it'll be seamless throughout tax season, which is kind of why they are not pushing back the tax deadline. Yeah, that was that was a question for some people, right? They thought, OK, maybe we'll get an extension this year. But the answer is no on that then. Yeah, absolutely. I think some people were banking on it because they hadn't done their taxes. But no, we're not getting a tax extension deadline. So call center workers who are part of the federal public service are going to be on strike. So, you know, not just tax related phone calls that you might make, but, you know, phone calls to Service Canada or to the immigration office.

You can expect longer than usual wait times on the phone because there'll just be fewer workers working these jobs because many of them will be on the picket line. The other big thing, Menaka, which we just found out today, is that passport processing will only be limited to Canadians who need passports for humanitarian or emergency travel reasons. So if you are just someone who in the last minute needs to get your passport renewed for a vacation you've booked, you are quite out of luck because the government has made it clear that, you know, they are not going to be prioritizing those people. Passport services have already been quite backlogged. So I think that is an impact that Canadians are really going to feel if you are about to travel. Right.

Okay, so let's get into this, Vanmela. Like, what's at issue here? What are the main sticking points in the and actually remote work language, which I'll get into. inflation. And as your listeners might know, we have been in a pretty high inflationary period for the last, say, one year, one year, three months. Inflation has started going down over the last two months. But, you know, the union is kind of playing catch up here because they are negotiating for a back pay of wages dating back to 2021 for that collective agreement. So what the union is asking for, just to kind of distill it down into actual numbers, is 13.5% of a wage hike spread over three years for about 120,000 of their workers at the bargaining table, excluding Canada Revenue Agency workers.

What the government has offered is a 9% wage hike spread over three years. Now, Canada Revenue Agency workers are asking for a 22.5% wage hike, and the government has offered them 9% also spread over three years. So you can see on both negotiating tables, both sides are pretty far apart still on the issue of wages. And that that remains the most contentious part of these negotiations. And workers are fed up. Workers are frustrated. And workers are saying enough is enough. We're not going to take the garbage anymore. Can I also ask you about remote work, though?

Because you mentioned that's a sticking point as well. So what's going on on that front? The union has been asking the government for a while to include remote work language in a collective agreement. And what that means is not necessarily that the union wants to dictate the terms of remote work language in a collective agreement. And what that means is not necessarily that the union wants to dictate the terms of remote work, but it wants to be able to have its members grieve a situation where they feel they've been unfairly accommodated or not accommodated in terms of where they want to work. So, for example, if a worker can demonstrate that they are quite productive being at home and they've worked, you know, two, three years fully remotely with no

issues, why does that worker have to adhere to a mandate imposed by the government to go back into the office twice a week, which is the current mandate for the Federal Public Service? Remote work for unions has become a sticking point in negotiations, not just this union, but, you know, I've seen it in other private sector unions where they want to address it in the collective agreement. And this kind of, you know, sort of provision was never addressed in collective agreements because we just, you know, never went through a period where we could all work from home. We'll be back after this message.

Venamila, can you help me put these demands in context? So when we're talking about remote work and then also the wage increase, that 13 percent that the union is asking for, are these demands a lot to ask for? Well, that is, it depends who you ask. So, all right, I guess the way for your listeners to understand it is to look at it in the context of inflation. So unions usually, when they're at the bargaining table, they ask for wage increases in line with inflation. For a long time, inflation has been at 2% or below. And so negotiations were never as contentious because those weren't seen as unreasonable wage asks from the perspective of the employer. However, we have

been going through a period of very high inflation. You know, last summer, inflation hit 8.1%, I believe. And so the union is essentially calculating the lost income that its members have experienced in their purchasing power over a period of a collective agreement, which in this case, we're talking about securing a collective agreement for 2021, 2022 and 2023. So this would be kind of retroactive, essentially. So they're saying, yeah, to go back to those years. Absolutely. You're right. Well, let's talk a little bit about the government then, because, you know, we've talked about the union side of things. The government side is represented by the Treasury Board of Canada in these negotiations. So, Vamala, what have they

said and the representative said about why a deal wasn't reached by Tuesday night? So, the government's perspective on this is that they have presented a very fair offer. Over the past two weeks, we've been able to resolve a number of issues through mediation. And most importantly, we have put a fair, competitive wage offer on the table. We recognize and respect employees' rights to strike. But when a good offer is on the table and there is a genuine commitment to compromise, the focus should be on negotiation. And they say that, number one, they have upped their wage offer from their initial offer to 9% spread over three years. And they are also saying that the other

demands that the union is asking for for its workers. And, you know, these things are complicated. They range from who does what shifts and what are they paid for these shifts? You know, issues around pension payments, a lot of intricate labor and employment issues that, you know, don't tend to get the headlines. But the government is saying that the cumulative asks of the union, you know, for this group of 120,000 Treasury Board workers, actually amount to about 25% to 47% in overall sort of wage hikes. The union disagrees with that. But I think the government is not willing to budge also in matching the union's ask because it is making a political calculation as to what will be unpopular. You know, will it be unpopular to give public sector workers what the public might deem too high a wage increase, given that Canadians themselves, taxpayers, have been going through a decline

in purchasing power because of inflation. We're all workers after all. Well, let me ask you about public sentiment then, because this can be a big factor in how strikes play out and who has power, which side has power at the bargaining table, too. So do we have any idea of how Canadians more broadly, I guess, are feeling about this strike? Because the strike is in day one, we're in Wednesday right now, we don't have any polling that I'm aware of that gauges sort of public sentiment and more specifically public sympathy towards striking workers. But I can give you some context on this, Menaka. So back in last November,

the QP education workers, so Canadian Union of Public Employees, also public sector education workers in Ontario, they were threatening to go on strike. And what happened in that case is there was a lot of public sympathy for these workers because you could identify with them. You knew who they were. They were education support staff for the most part. I think it will be more difficult for the Canadian public to be sympathetic to workers they can't really relate to. And you might see that being reflected in any kind of polling or, you know, sort of overall sentiment towards these workers. But, you know, that remains to be seen. experienced a huge surge over the last one and a half years. People have generally been more sympathetic towards unionizing, striking, things like that. So there's a difference between these workers striking and I think what we saw back in November. So now that we're in this position, Vanmala, what are the next moves here for both the government and for the union? What could happen now?

Right. So a couple of things could happen. First of all, the government could come back to the union and say, look, here's a new proposal on all of these issues, including a further wage hike. They could reach a deal. The second scenario is the strike continues. Both sides don't budge in the office. The union doesn't lower their offer. The government doesn't increase the offer. And we could see a strike go on to the point where the government might decide, hey, I want to invoke

back to work legislation, which means that they will have to table a bill, get the bill passed, and which would subsequently force a contract upon these workers that force them back to work, or the union and the government will get into what you call binding arbitration, where they hash out all the details of how to come up with a new collective agreement in a tribunal. So the back to work legislation outcome, it remains, you know, sort of possibly quite unpopular, given that the Liberal government has allied itself with the NDP. And the NDP has vocally said multiple times, even this morning, that they will not support any kind of back to work legislation. You know, meaning that the liberals will struggle to get the bill passed in Parliament. I know it's just the first day of this strike here, Pamela, but

are there are there any indications as to how long this actually might go on for? That's hard to tell. I mean, some context of this in 1991, there was a federal public worker strike that lasted about three weeks and it ended when then Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, a conservative prime minister, forced workers back to work with back to work legislation. There was another smaller strike of public sector workers in 2004 that ended, you know, within a few days after they reached negotiated settlement. What's interesting is that when union members voted for the strike, they voted in a very, very overwhelming way, where over 90% of public service workers, part of PSAC, voted for a strike. So I think it's some sort of leverage for the union to keep going in the strike. Okay. And just very lastly here, Vanmala, I mean, since you're the future of work reporter

at The Globe, I want to ask you kind of about the big picture here, because I'm wondering if this big of a strike, this is a significant number of people on strike, if this signals anything in terms of, I guess, the overall strength of unions in 2023? Yeah, I think that the labor movement has undergone a very significant change in the last one and a half years, because of inflation, I think, and the pandemic. So I think people have realized for the most part that, you know, their relationships with their jobs have potentially changed. There's more interest in unionizing, although that is not yet being reflected very tangibly in the data. But more significantly, unions are becoming a little bit more militant in Canada than they used to be

in that they are pushing hard at the bargaining table because they want to be able to get wage increases for their workers that are in line with inflation. And so I think that securing big wage wins has become the forefront of the labor movement right now. And you're seeing that play out with the scale of the strike. It is the largest strike against a single employer in Canadian history and one of the largest strikes overall in Canada in Canadian history, and one of the largest strikes overall in Canada, in Canadian history. So yeah, the labor movement is going through something very interesting and significant, but it's a window of time. Inflation has gone down, and it's unclear how long this sort of momentum will last. Bemola, thank you so much. I know it's a busy day there, so I really appreciate you taking the time to walk us through this.

Thank you so much, Meenaka. And thanks to our academic intern, Andrew Hines, for gathering tape of the picket line in Vancouver. The most important thing was the umbrella for today. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, Vancouver, great city, but it's hard to consistently strike in if it's raining all the time, you know? It is. That's it for today. I'm Mainika Raman-Wilms. Our intern is Andrew Hines.

Our producers are Madeline White, Cheryl Sutherland, and Rachel Levy-McLaughlin. David Crosby edits the show. Adrienne Chung is our senior producer, and Angela Pachenza is our executive editor. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll talk to you tomorrow.