And now we learn that the federal government continues to pay its employees even if they are on strike!
According to what the daily discovered Tea Globe and Maila large number of employees – possibly most of the 100,000 non-essential strikers – will still receive their pay in two weeks given the technological incapacity and bureaucratic inflexibility of the federal apparatus.
Isn’t it surprising, knowing that the game of negotiations is precisely in the exhaustion of the parties, in particular financial?
Yes, well, there is a delay with the electronic pay system. According to Globe and Mailthe government says it wants to recover the money during the following paydays, but the daily suggests that the union could put the stake in the final settlement of the negotiations, which affect 155,000 federal civil servants.
On Friday, the union official I spoke to denied such a possibility. Nevertheless, after 19 months of negotiations, couldn’t the federal government have been better prepared?
This story reminds us of the fiasco of passport management last year, or even that of the Phoenix pay system, the very one that is not agile enough to stop payments quickly today1.
By the way, what are the positions of the two parties? The wage demands are separated into two groups. In the spring of 2022, the 35,000 first-level auditors at the Canada Revenue Agency demanded a 29.5% salary increase over three years, but some say 33%, probably due to the compounding effect. It is enormous !
The demand is more precisely 4.5% for 2022, 8% for 2023 and 8% for 2024, above which is added an adjustment of 9%. The federal government has not yet tabled a formal offer in their case, but it is expected to do so once it has reached an agreement with the second group.
This second group is made up of the other 120,000 employees on strike. They are support staff, passport officers, technicians, trades people and parole officers, among others. Applications filed in June 2021 are 13.5% over three years, or 4.5% per year, which is more reasonable, but still high.
The federal government offered them 9% over three years on Friday, an offer in line with the suggestion of the Public Interest Commission, a sort of federal conciliation body. The offer is more precisely 1.5% for 2021, 4.5% for 2022 and 3% in 2024.
On average, the majority of employees on strike – who are mostly women – earn between $40,000 and $65,000, says Yvon Barrière, vice-president, Quebec, of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC).
Is it realistic? Remember that the average inflation rate was 3.8% in 2021, 6.8% in 2022 and that the Bank of Canada expects it to be 3.5% in 2023 and 2 .3% in 2024.
In short, by doing a simple addition, the demand of 13.5% over three years could be compared to an inflation of 14.1%. And that of 29.5% of tax employees would be comparable to inflation of 12.6% over three years.
According to Yvon Barrière, the union has just watered down its wine, so much so that demand is now lower than the 13.5% over three years. Same thing for the request of 29.5% of the first group. In short, the two camps are getting closer.
Moreover, Friday noon, the management negotiators returned to the negotiating table, after an absence of three days. And they have tabled a new “global offer”, which could lead to an agreement this weekend.
Will employees get as much if not more than inflation? It would be surprising, even irresponsible for the federal government to do so.
On the one hand, the federal government is still forecasting heavy deficits over the next few years. Do you know many heavily loss-making companies that offer such raises to their employees?
On the other hand, federal employees are known to earn much more than their peers in the private sector or in the Quebec government when everything is taken into account (salaries, vacation, pension plan, etc.).
Examples ? A level 1 or 2 administrative technician earns an average of $48.52 per hour actually worked, a positive difference of 7.1% compared to the same position in the Quebec government.
The favorable difference at the federal level is 10.5% for administrative staff, 35% for a paralegal and 32% for a motor vehicle mechanic. The data comes from an extensive study on compensation by the Institut de la statistique du Québec (ISQ).
In short, the government’s offer of 9% over three years seems quite reasonable.
There remains the issue of telework. The private sector fears that the formal introduction of telework in collective agreements at the federal level will lead to a generalization among companies. However, many companies are looking to bring their staff back to face-to-face, which could harm them.
Yvon Barrière, of the PSAC, assures me that the union is only seeking to include telework in collective agreements, not to require it for a minimum number of days per week. Yeah…
Be that as it may, I cannot believe that the two parties will not be able to agree on this issue, knowing that telework, in certain cases, and when it is well supervised, generates real savings in time and greenhouse gases (GHG).
In the meantime, the federal government should adjust its flutes to cut off supplies to its employees from the first days of the strike. This is the very basis of labor disputes.
1. Remember that there are still more than 400,000 payroll problems awaiting treatment with this Phoenix system implemented seven years ago by the Harper government.