The federal government tabled a new contract offer to the Public Service Alliance of Canada Friday, as thousands of federal workers remained on strike for the tenth straight day.
Both the union and a spokeswoman for Treasury Board President Mona Fortier confirmed the offer, which is the first sign of any progress in the talks since the union said things were at a stalemate on Wednesday.
Fortier’s press secretary Monica Granados called it a “comprehensive offer” but provided no further details.
In a written statement the union confirmed receiving the offer as talks resumed Friday.
“We hope to continue bargaining this weekend in order to reach a fair deal,” the statement said.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Friday the government is making “serious offers” in a bid to bring a strike of its largest public-sector union to an end.
More than 100,000 members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada walked off the job April 19 after the union and government failed to reach new contract deals.
The contracts affect 155,000 federal workers in total but the government deemed about 46,000 of them as essential workers who are not taking part in the job action.
Trudeau, who was in New York City this week for a trade trip, said he is involved.
“I have been directly and intimately involved in the negotiations, in hearing about what discussions are going on,” he said, responding to a question from a reporter at a news conference.
He said he is confident the strike can be concluded with a negotiated deal. The government could end the strike with back-to-work legislation, but Liberal ministers have refused to even entertain a question about using such a tool.
“I have deep faith in collective bargaining as a process,” Trudeau said. “We know that our negotiators are putting forward serious offers.”
The government’s last published wage offer was to be backdated to 2021, with a 1.5 percent increase that year, followed by 4.5 percent raise in 2022 and another of three percent in 2023.
Fortier has repeatedly said that is the wage offer recommended by the Public Interest Commission, a panel appointed by the Federal Public Sector Labour Relations and Employment Board last year to help the two sides reach an agreement.
It is not clear if today’s offer included a bigger wage increase.
“Thanks to inflation rising by 11 percent since 2021, federal public service workers’ wages are worth the same as they were in 2007,” the Twitter statement said.
Early Friday, picket lines were a little more sparse in downtown Ottawa than they had been earlier in the week, when union members flooded the Parliamentary Precinct in a bid to ramp up the direct impact of the strike.
“We are taking the bridge,” chanted a large group of picketing workers as they marched across it.
Aside from pay, other issues described by the government as sticking points earlier this week include the flexibility to work remotely, the reduction of the government’s use of outside contractors and the implementation of seniority rules in the event of layoffs.
They want a policy on remote work included in their contracts.
Fortier said in an open letter earlier this week that she was offering to do a joint review of the telework policy with the unions.
Jennifer Carr, president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada union, said that is a good start but it’s not good enough.
“We need a binding commitment in a collective agreement, because we have seen too many instances where the employer has abandoned its promises or ignored the process after signing a memorandum of understanding with us,” she said.
Carr said the government’s consultation on the return-to-office directive was “abysmal” and didn’t listen to the government’s own advisers.
As the strike continues, Canadians are facing a wide range of federal service disruptions, including an inability to process immigration and passport applications.
About 35,000 of the affected workers are employed at the Canada Revenue Agency which has limited the access Canadians have to get help filing their taxes ahead of the deadline on May 1.