MONTREAL — A 12-day nationwide strike by 120,000 federal government workers ended May 1 with a tentative agreement between the Public Service Alliance of Canada and the government. Wage increases were the overriding issue in the strike.
Workers will vote soon on whether to accept the contract. The deal does not affect 35,000 workers at the Canada Revenue Agency, whose picket lines are still up as talks between bosses and the PSAC continue.
Tens of thousands of government workers, many participating in their first strike, have joined picket lines and demonstrations.
“What we really gained with this strike is fighting experience,” Martin Trudel-Racine, a coast guard sailor in Rimouski, Quebec, told the Militant by phone. He is president of Local 10109 of the Union of Canadian Transportation Employees.
The contract provides a 12.6% wage increase over four years retroactive to June 2021, and a lump sum payment of 2,500 Canadian dollars ($1,835). The unionists rejected the government’s initial 9% offer over three years before striking.
“It’s not just us. Everybody deserves fair wages in order to survive,” striker Nielene Chan told Global News on the picket line at the Cascadia grain terminal in Vancouver.