"Canada Revenue Agency Union Strike: Latest Updates and Impact on Services"

2023-04-18 03:11:15

Federal public servants and union members at the Canada Revenue Agency will call a general strike on Wednesday, April 19 at 12:15 a.m. if no agreement with Ottawa is reached by 9 p.m. Tuesday, the Public Service Alliance announced. of Canada (PSAC).

The large pan-Canadian union represents 120,000 federal public servants working in various departments and 35,000 union members at the Canada Revenue Agency, who are directly affected by this walkout.

In the event of a strike, essential services will be provided, particularly at borders and in prisons, the PSAC has already indicated.

The Treasury Board Secretariat also clarified that Employment Insurance benefits will continue to be paid, as will Veterans Income Support, Old Age Security benefits and the Guaranteed Income Supplement, as well as than Canada Pension Plan payments.

However, several services to the public will be affected, including the issuance of passports, immigration services and tax returns. Similarly, the wait on the phone will be longer than usual, warned the union.

During a press conference on Monday, the PSAC said it did not want to strike, but was ready to do so if there is no agreement with the federal government by Tuesday evening.

“After what the government and the PSAC have described as many days of productive discussions and progress on many issues, we are disappointed to learn that if an agreement is not reached, the PSAC will go on strike this Wednesday, April 19,” commented the Treasury Board.

“We’ve been negotiating since June 2021,” said PSAC National President Chris Aylward. The Alliance’s demands mainly relate to salaries, telecommuting and the outsourcing of jobs from the public service to the private sector.

Negotiations were to resume Monday between the Union of Taxation Employees and the Canada Revenue Agency. The same is true for the four major groups of public servants represented by the PSAC and the Treasury Board. “There is still time to reach an agreement before the start of the strike. We know that the sooner an agreement is reached, the sooner public servants will receive their salary increases and benefits,” replied the Treasury Board Secretariat.

Raises and telecommuting

PSAC members have not had a raise since June 2020 and are “frustrated,” Aylward said. We didn’t cause inflation, we shouldn’t have to pay for it. »

In the same breath, the Alliance says the parties have negotiated much more intensively in recent days. “We negotiated more in the past two weeks than in the past two years,” noted Yvon Barrière, regional director vice-president for Quebec at the PSAC. The union is demanding increases of 4.5% per year for 2021, 2022 and 2023.

The federal government, meanwhile, changed its offer of wage increases on Sunday, which now stands at 9% over three years, the Treasury revealed on Monday. He describes his offer as “fair and competitive” and notes that it “reflects the recommendations of the independent Public Interest Commission”. This commission had, in fact, produced a report intended to bring the parties closer together.

The question of telework also seems to be a problem, according to the Treasury Board. “The PSAC has made it clear that if other demands, such as the integration of telework into collective agreements, are not met, this will be a problem. These demands, as currently worded, would have a serious impact on the government’s ability to provide services to Canadians and limit its ability to effectively manage the public service workforce,” the Treasury added.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would not comment publicly on the content of the actual negotiation. “We will continue, as we have been doing for many weeks, to work in good faith at the negotiating table. »

However, he pointed out that “inflation is coming down”, which should bring some respite to all workers. “We are in the process of seeing good growth in our economy,” he added.

A special law?

As for the president of the Alliance, Chris Aylward, he invited the Trudeau government to “not force us to return to work” by a special law, if it is true that it respects the rights of workers.

Asked about this, Prime Minister Trudeau did not respond directly to the special law and said he preferred to “focus on the negotiation tables”.

Passing special legislation has become more difficult since the Supreme Court of Canada’s Saskatchewan decision in January 2015. This important labor law decision granted constitutional protection to the right to strike. The highest court in the country had then ruled that this right was a way of rebalancing the forces between the employer and union parties.