Federal ministers say Tuesday they are monitoring blockages of roads and critical infrastructure as striking federal workers deliver on their promise to step up their job action, disrupting traffic and restricting access to high-rise buildings. downtown Ottawa offices.
More than 150,000 federal public servants who are members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) are on strike for the seventh consecutive day on Tuesday. Their union representatives continue to negotiate with the government for a bigger pay rise and more flexibility from the employer in terms of teleworking.
In the federal capital region on Tuesday, hundreds of picketers made their presence felt and heard around various buildings, in a din of megaphones and booming music throughout the morning.
Hundreds of strikers crossed the Portage Bridge, between Ottawa and Gatineau, a Quebec city where there are also important federal buildings, blocking traffic for a short time on Tuesday morning.
Meanwhile, in front of the Prime Minister’s Office building and in front of the Treasury Board headquarters, a few blocks away, the strikers have limited access to one person every five minutes.
Signs on the picket lines reflected key issues identified by Treasury Board President Mona Fortier on Monday, including wages and public servants’ concerns about increased contracting out in Ottawa.
Staking and economic consequences
The picket escalation comes after PSAC National President Chris Aylward promised that picket lines would move to “more strategic locations” where job action would have a greater economic impact, such as seaports of entry.
The job action had all but disappeared in Ottawa by 2 p.m., with only a few pickets visible outside the Treasury Board building. There was no one near the office building where most of Prime Minister Trudeau’s employees work.
Striking public servants need only go to the picket lines four hours a day to receive their $75 per diem. Prior to the strike, the union’s fund stood at $43 million, a sum that could quickly run out depending on the number of workers who show up on the picket lines each day.
Chris Aylward said at the weekend that he was not worried about the possible depletion of the strike fund, but he did not say where the Alliance would get help from.
On Tuesday, three national unions – the Canadian Labor Congress, Unifor and the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada – told The Canadian Press that the PSAC had yet to seek contributions to replenish its strike fund. , and that they had made none. The Canadian Union of Public Employees also confirmed that it had not made a donation to the PSAC.
Ministers are monitoring
While it’s unclear how long that strike fund would last, the union vowed to up the ante after days of negotiations that failed to reach an agreement with the government, saying on Monday it had succeeded in “closing” the ports of Montreal, Vancouver and Saint-Jean, in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Federal ministers gathered in Ottawa for the weekly cabinet meeting on Tuesday morning said they were monitoring critical infrastructure blockages.
“On the one hand, they have the right to strike and demonstrate,” Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne told reporters on Tuesday. On the other hand, we have to make sure that the economy can continue to function across the country. »
Transport Minister Omar Alghabra said he had been in contact with port and airport authorities to ensure contingency plans were in place.
“I know Canadians would like us to avoid disrupting travel and supply chains, and our goal is to resolve this issue at the negotiating table,” he said.
Negotiations continue
Treasury Board President Mona Fortier told reporters Tuesday afternoon that both sides were at the negotiating table by morning.
In an open letter published Monday afternoon, Mr.me Fortier identified four main points of contention that remain between the union and the government: wages, telecommuting, the use of subcontractors and seniority rules in the event of layoff.
When asked if the current offer to raise salaries by 9% over three years was the government’s final offer, the minister did not give a clear answer. She simply recalled that this offer was based on the recommendation of a “public interest commission”, a mechanism provided, in the event of an impasse, by the Act respecting labor relations in the federal public sector. The union is demanding a 13.5% wage increase over three years.
A public interest commission is made up of three members: a chairperson appointed by the Labor Relations Board, one person appointed by the union and another by the employer.
Memories of the convoy
Federal and provincial governments are more aware than ever of the vulnerability and importance of major highways and entry points after last year’s Freedom Convoy, according to Ambarish Chandra, associate professor of economics at the University of Toronto.
Protesters took over main streets in downtown Ottawa for three weeks and blocked border crossings for days in February 2022 to protest mandatory vaccinations — and the federal government in general. The protest prompted the Liberal government to invoke the federal Emergency Measures Act.
Although these events are far from the activities of the public servants on strike, the decision of federal workers to target critical infrastructure points could spill over, Professor Chandra believes. The academic was one of the experts to testify on protecting the movement of essential goods and services during the public inquiry that has been set up to assess the government’s decision to use the Measures Act emergency.
“Events of the past year have highlighted just how vulnerable we are and it is perhaps unsurprising that other groups are now seizing on this vulnerability to exploit what they now realize is some sort of loophole. critical in infrastructure,” he said.
Smaller disruptions to borders and other critical infrastructure are likely to be annoying and in some cases costly, he said, but they tend to fade quickly from public memory compared to larger blockages. .
This dispatch was produced with the financial assistance of the Meta Exchange and The Canadian Press for the news.