As the strike by 155,000 workers of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) enters its third day, Canadians from coast to coast are wondering how long the strike might last, and how it could end.
Two PSAC groups—a larger Treasury Board group of more than 120,000 workers across several government departments and a smaller group of more than 35,000 workers at the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA)—
have been striking nationwide since the federal government and PSAC failed to reach a deal before an April 18 evening deadline. Board workers set up picket lines at more than 250 locations across Canada, including eight in the Ottawa-Gatineau region.
The union is asking for a large raise because of the rising cost of living, arguing that its workers stepped up during the pandemic and deserve compensation. It also wants employees to be able to work from home full-time, while the Treasury Board has pushed for a “hybrid model.”
During a media availability on Thursday, Deputy Prime Minister
Chrystia Freeland said the federal government offered the striking workers a fair deal that wouldn’t burden the treasury with necessarily high wage costs in a time of economic uncertainty.
Ottawa has warned that the strike
could impact a number of federal services, including taxes, border services, employment insurance, veteran support, and passport applications.
On Thursday, the second day of the 2023 PSAC national strike, National President Chris Aylward said it was up to the federal government to decide how long the strike goes on. But he also alluded to the potential for similar forms of cross-country disruption seen during PSAC’s 1991 strike.
“We’re not taking over the streets. We’re not shutting down airports or borders yet. We’re not inconveniencing the public today. But the longer we’re out here, the public is going to see more and more inconvenience. We don’t want to do that,” he said.
1991 PSAC Strike
In 1991, PSAC went on strike after Conservative Finance Minister Michael Wilson attempted to save $585 million in the federal budget by freezing the wages of 214,000 public servants.Then-Prime Minister Brian Mulroney further inflamed tensions when he said he wouldn’t be “bamboozled by a bunch of self-centred, boggy-brained public servants.”
On Sept. 10 that year, the striking workers set up picket lines in cities across Canada. It was, at the time, the largest-ever national strike by a single union in Canada.
On the first day of the strike, protestors in Ottawa managed to knock a metal barricade onto the ground and marched toward Parliament. The crowd’s push forward ended at the doors of the House of Commons, which had been slammed shut.
That same day, the strikers caused a traffic jam in downtown Ottawa and in Gatineau, and closed the Portage Bridge connecting Ontario and Quebec for 90 minutes. Throughout the course of the strike, traffic jams were seen in cities across Canada as strikers blocked cars at key intersections.In Toronto, flights were delayed at Pearson International after striking public servants blocked air traffic controllers from getting to their jobs, which created a ripple effect and also delayed flights at Montreal’s Dorval Airport. Protestors also blocked the airport in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
All 24 locks along the Rideau Canal between Ottawa and Kingston were closed by the strike, leaving managers working to clear the waterway of stranded boats. And in British Columbia, federal grain inspectors, weighers, and samplers established picket lines at the Vancouver terminals, blocking shipments of grain.
After 13 days of strikes, on Oct. 1, 1991, the federal government drafted back-to-work legislation that ended the strike and forced workers to return to their jobs. The Treasury Board did not back down from its proposal to freeze public servants’ wages in 1991 and kept the 1992 increase to 3 percent.
That strike cost PSAC nearly $16 million, and it had to borrow money from other unions and banks to make up for the amount. Union members were also faced with a $60-a-year due increase to rebuild the PSAC’s strike fund, and the union suspended hundreds of members who crossed picket lines.
PSAC was more successful with its 2004 strike, which lasted only one day. More than 120,000 workers went on strike on Oct. 11 after the federal government refused to meet its demand of a 10 percent raise over the next four years. Parks Canada workers temporarily shut down many national parks and the Rideau Canal.
By Oct. 12, the federal government had reached a deal with 25,000 striking workers to give them a 10 percent raise.
Potential for Back-to-Work Legislation
On Wednesday, MPs in Parliament also brought up the potential for back-to-work legislation to end the strike. When NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh asked if he would commit to not bringing forth back-to-work legislation, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau responded that negotiators were putting forth proposals that “respect the hard work of public service workers over the last few years.”
When criticized by the Conservatives for letting the strike happen, Trudeau also criticized the Conservatives by saying that if they were in power, they would be implementing back-to-work legislation “even before the picket lines were brought up, as they have done before.”
The Conservative government
under Stephen Harper implemented back-to-work legislation in 2007 to end a Canadian National Railway Company strike, and almost did so in 2009 to end a strike by CN Rail workers.
But the Liberals have enacted back-to-work legislation twice since being elected in 2015. The first time, in November 2018, the government did so to end a weeks-long strike by Canada Post workers. And in April 2021, the Liberal government passed back-to-work legislation for the second time to end a strike at the Port of Montreal.
In 2021, the Liberals were under pressure to use back-to-work legislation to end a brief strike between CP Rail and the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, but the strike ended
shortly after it began.For now, Liberals have dodged questions on whether they would put forth back-to-work legislation to end the strike, as have the Conservatives on whether they would vote for the legislation. But the NDP’s Singh—whose party backs the Liberals on key items through a supply-and-confidence agreement—
said he would not support such legislation.
“We envision that there might be a scenario where the government would bring it back-to-work legislation,“ Singh said on Wednesday. ”They’ve done it in the past and I said really clearly to them that we will never support that.”
