Members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) demonstrate outside the Treasury Board building in Ottawa on March 31.PATRICK DOYLE/The Canadian Press
Tens of thousands of federal public servants are in a position to strike after months of fruitless negotiations with their Ottawa bosses. Key pieces of dispute include non-wage benefits and whether some type of remote work protection should be part of collective agreements. When it comes to the demand for pay hikes, labour leaders can point to statistics showing Canadian average hourly wages up more than 5 per cent, year-over-year.
But if federal public servants walk off the job in the days or weeks ahead, prepare for a blast of public opinion against the strike, especially outside the Ottawa-Gatineau region.
It won’t be just because of the potential disruption to passport services (again), or filing taxes. The inflationary pressure on food and other prices the Public Service Alliance of Canada talks about in its negotiations with the Treasury Board are being borne by all Canadians. And for many years now, the pay of federal workers has compared pretty favourably to private sector jobs.
Most importantly, many Canadians will find demands coming from public sector unions in an era of economic uncertainty, and change, tough to swallow. Federal workers have job and pension security, and benefits, that many workers can only dream of.
The wage demands are significant. The government is currently in negotiations with 26 of 28 bargaining groups across the public service. The PSAC, the largest of those, is seeking a 4.5-per-cent annual increase over the 2021-23 period. The government’s offer was 2.07 per cent annually over three years. Canada Revenue Agency workers, also represented by PSAC, also voted to strike earlier this month. The union is asking for unprecedented wage increases for CRA workers of 4.5 per cent in 2021, 8 per cent in 2022 and 8 per cent in 2023, in part to catch employees there up with their peers.
Public servants do important work and deserve fair compensation. In recent years, they have suffered through the malfunctions of the Phoenix payroll system. And there’s no doubt many did yeoman’s service during the pandemic. The federal public service grew well above trend during the pandemic, the Parliamentary Budget Officer said, but much of the expansion was related to COVID-19, including the hiring at the CRA to process applications for emergency benefits.
But there are many aspects of working for the federal government, especially in the pandemic era, that have distinguished it from the experience of other Canadians.
Outside of the public sector, workers were laid off and survived on CERB – and now many have been ordered back to the office, full- or part-time. Others saw their businesses crumble, or were pushed to switch careers. Federal workers didn’t get laid off. They had access to more programs to help, including a provision that gives workers paid time off for emergencies or to care for children or other dependants, that didn’t require them to use up vacation or sick days. According to the CBC, more than one-quarter of federal workers were granted this paid leave time at some point during the early days of the pandemic.
There’s also other benefits, including a defined benefit pension plan. Statistics Canada says there are about 6.6 million Canadians lucky enough to be active members in some type of registered pension plan. Membership in pension plans in Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia increased in 2020, in part because the ranks of the public service increased that year. Membership decreased in other provinces, such as Alberta and Newfoundland and Labrador – where the oil price crash hit hard, and the vagaries of the commodity market always dictate the health of the economy.
There’s also the strain on government coffers. Although last month’s federal budget proposed to phase in a roughly 3-per-cent reduction of eligible spending by departments and agencies by 2026-27, there is no guarantee this will happen – especially as negotiations progress. But there is a clear sense of urgency for public-sector unions to secure solid deals for members, in the here and now. We’re likely two years away from a federal election that could see a change in government. If you represent public-sector workers, would you rather be negotiating with Liberals or Conservatives?
Calgary – where I’m based – is, of course, the centre of the high-wage, resource-focused Alberta economy, and is a far-off place to be talking about public-sector jobs in Ottawa. But that’s part of the problem.
In the United States, the federal public service is closely associated with Washington. But according to the Brookings Institution, 85 per cent of federal employees work outside the capital. That contrasts with Canada, where more than 40 per cent of all federal jobs are in the National Capital Region.
To be sure, there’s been criticism of haphazardly moving jobs. The Harper government has been criticized for underestimating the complexity of centralizing the Phoenix payroll system in Miramichi, N.B. In the process, the government lost workers with payroll experience and expertise who chose not to move. (But years on, municipal leaders there now speak of the boon it has been to the small community).
No one should contemplate establishing public-sector work in other parts of the country without a clear purpose and plan. But professor Loleen Berdahl at the University of Saskatchewan has argued the pandemic should be used as an opportunity to consider how we distribute federal work in the country. Having more federal jobs in different regions, she said, could in some cases reduce costs, and ease cynicism toward the federal government. In good news on this front, the budget saw Winnipeg named as the home of the long-awaited Canada Water Agency.
Public-sector work has in recent times helped bring an element of stability to local labour markets vulnerable to swings in the economy. Civil service jobs are desirable, with compensation and job security being just part of that picture. Spreading more of this work around would go a distance in easing the us-versus-them thinking that often divides the country.