Federal workers are preparing to go on strike over demands for a higher salary from Ottawa.
Public servants with the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) marched on Thursday to the Treasury Board headquarters calling on the federal government to increase their wages by 4.5%.
“Right now our main issue, quite honestly, is wages,” said PSAC National President Chris Aylward.
“With the offer that they have on the table of 1.75 per cent per year, when inflation is running at eight per cent, that is nothing but an insult.”
Mediation is expected to begin on Sept. 12 and could last all month.
“Federal public sector workers carried this country for two years through this pandemic providing Canadians with essential services that they relied on every day, getting benefits out the door in record time,” said Aylward.
“All we are asking for from this government is some respect.”
The strike threat comes only a year after 312,825 federal workers and MPs received pay hikes with over 45,000 more federal workers earning a six-figure salary compared to before the pandemic.
According to the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, PSAC walked away from negotiations and listed 500 demands.
“The employer respects the right of employees to lawfully demonstrate, but we are disappointed that the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) walked away from the bargaining table for several of their bargaining units at a stage of negotiations where we had both just tabled our initial economic offer,” the Treasury Board wrote in a statement.
According to a new report by the Fraser Institute, a vast majority of the jobs created throughout the pandemic were public sector jobs. A total of 86.7% of the new jobs from Feb. 2020 to Jul. 2022 were in the government.
“Many of the headline statistics surrounding the Canadian labour market appear encouraging at a glance, but the reality is more complicated,” said Fraser Institute senior fellow Ben Eisen.
“Canada’s job creation in recent years has not been driven by private sector-growth, but rather has primarily been the result of government hiring.”
The amount of executive positions in the federal government also ballooned by 21% with 7,900 new management positions being created.
